Conformity Flashcards
1
Q
What does the topic conformity consist of?
A
- Asch’s procedure and the variables he tested
2
Q
What was Asch’s baseline procedure?
A
- 123 American men were tested
- There was a standard line X and three comparison lines A B C
- Participants had to identify which comparison line was the same length as the standard line
- The answer was always relatively apparent
- The groups were made up of 6-8 people with one genuine pps, therefore it was testing majority influence
- Genuine pps agreed with confederates 36.8% of the time
3
Q
What three variables did Asch investigate?
A
- Group Size
- Unanimity
- Task Difficulty
4
Q
What was the effect of Group Size on conformity
A
- Conformity increased with group size but only up to a point
5
Q
What was the effect of Unanimity on conformity
A
- The presence of a dissenter meant that conformity decreased dramatically
6
Q
What was the effect of Task Difficulty on conformity?
A
- Conformity increased as task difficulty increased
- Asch suggested this due to informative social influence - the desire to be correct
7
Q
What questions the generalisability of Asch’s study?
A
- Asch’s pps were all American, creating culture bias as Western, more individualist cultures may be generally more/less likely to conform than other collectivist cultures, therefore this questions the generalisabiltiy as the findings may not be universally applicable
8
Q
What research supports Asch’s study and who was the researcher?
A
- Todd Lucas (2006) gave pps easy and hard maths questions, pps were given answers from three confederates and conformed more frequently on harder questions than on easier ones supporting Asch’s variable of task difficulty
9
Q
What is an issue with Asch’s study
A
- Asch’s study may have been prone to demand characteristics as the pss knew it was a research study, also the task was relatively trivial and so there was no real reason to not conform - suggesting the finding may not be valid and therefore cannot be applies to the real world
