Conformity- Asch

Question 1

Asch’s baseline procedure

Answer 1

• 1951
• 123 american male participants were tested, each one in a group with other apparent participants (6-8 in a group)
• naive participant was either seated last or 6th
• Had to compare line lengths to Line X and say otu loud whether A, B, C was the same length
• naive participants conformed 36.8% of the time
• 25% of participants never conformed

Question 2

Variables investigated by Asch

Answer 2

• 1955
• group size
• task difficulty
• unanimity

Question 3

group size

Answer 3

• Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority
• Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three (31.8%
• this suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two was enough to sway opinion

Question 4

unanimity

Answer 4

• the extent to which all the members of a group agree
• In Asch’s studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line
• this produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naive participants
• the presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant, thus conformity decreased
• this suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous

Question 5

task difficulty

Answer 5

• Asch’s line judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer
• Conformity increased because the naive participant assumed that the majority is more likely to be right (ISI)

Question 6

Artificial situation and task

Limitation

Answer 6

• Participants knew they were in a research study and may have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics)
• Fiske (2014)- Asch’s groups did not resemble something that you would experience in everyday life- no reason to not conform
• this means the findings do not generalise to real world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important

Question 7

Limited application

Limitation

Answer 7

• Asch’s participants were American men
• Neto (1955)- women might be more conformist because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted
• USA is an individualist culture- conformity studies in collectivist cultures e.g. China have shown higher rates of conformity because the social group is seen as more important than the individual
• Asch’s findings tell us little about women and people from other cultures

Question 8

Research support

strength

Answer 8

• Support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
• Todd Lucas (2006) asked their participants to solve easy and hard maths problems and were given answers from three other students
• Participants conformed more often when the problems were harder
• shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficultt is one variable that affects conformity