Comformity - Asch

Question 1

What was Asch’s baseline procedure ?

Answer 1

• 123 American men were tested with other ‘participants’
• They were shown line x and were asked which line was the same length as x - a, b or c
• They were in groups of 6-8 people
• They was only one real participant, the rest were confederates
• Participant agreed with confederates 36.8% of the time.

Question 2

What was the aim of Asch’s experiment ?

Answer 2

What extent people conform to other peoples opinions, even where the answer is certain

Question 3

What are the 3 variables of Asch’s experiment ?

Answer 3

1. Group size
2. Unanimity
3. task difficulty

Question 4

What was the effect of the variable ‘group size’ ?

Answer 4

• varied the amount of confederates from 1-15
• Found conformity increased with group size up until a point
• When there were 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%
• After that conformity rates levelled off

Question 5

What was the effect of the variable ‘unanimity’ ?

Answer 5

• Wondered if the presence of a. non-conforming person would affect the participant’s conformity
• He added in a confederate who would give a different answer (either right or wrong depending on the variation)
  -The rate of conformity decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority of the confederates where unanimous

Question 6

What was the effect of the variable ‘task difficulty’ ?

Answer 6

• He increased the difficulty of the line judging task by making the comparison lines more similar
• This meant it was harder for the genuine participant
• Asch found conformity increased
• They used ISI as the situation was ambiguous

Question 7

What is a strength of Asch’s experiment ?

Answer 7

Research support = Lucas et al
Asked participants to solve easy and hard math’s questions. participants were given answer from three other students. The harder the questions the more the participant conformed.

Question 8

What are some limitations of Asch’s experiment ?

Answer 8

Artificial task and situation
Participants knew they were in a research study and then may have acted to demand characteristics. The task was quite trivial and didn’t relate to real life.

Limited application to the public
All of the participants were American men. this therefore doesn’t show how women conform as it has been found that women actually conform more. This also only shows us information about American culture and not any other’s