conformity

Question 1

Asch’s baseline procedure

Answer 1

• devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation when the answer is clear
• this is called the baseline study because all other studies can be compared against it
• 123 american men tested, each one in a group with other apparent participants, each one saw two large white cards
• one card had a line ‘x’, other card had three lines ‘a,b,c’, one clearly same length as x, participants had to say out loud which line was same length
• other participants in each group were confederates and gave wrong answer each time

Question 2

variables investigated by Asch - group size

Answer 2

• varied number of confederates from 1-15
• found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate, conformity increased with group size but only up to a certain point, with 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%
• suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinions

Question 3

variables investigated by Asch - unanimity

Answer 3

• introduced a confederate who disagreed with other confederates, in one variation this person gave the right answer and in the other variation he gave a wrong one
• genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
• suggests that the influence of the majority largely depends on it being unanimous, non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority’s unanimous view

Question 4

variables investigated by Asch - task difficulty

Answer 4

• he increased difficulty of the line judging class by making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar to each other in length, so it became harder for genuine participants to see difference in length
• he found that conformity increased, may be that situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder, it its unclear what the answer is
• in situations like these it is natural to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and you are wrong
• this is called informative social influence

Question 5

limitation of Asch’s research - limited application

Answer 5

• all participants were American men, other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and acceptance
• the US is also an individualist culture where people tend to be more concerned about themselves then other members in their social group
• similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures such as China have found that conformity rates are higher
• overall, Asch’s findings tell us little about women and people from different cultures

Question 6

asch baseline study findings

Answer 6

• participants agreed with confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time
• 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer (never conformed)