Conformity - ASCH Flashcards
nternalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch. Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
Line comparisons
Baseline Study (Asch 1951)
aim-procedure-findings
- AIM: To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinions of others (even if ans is certain)
- PROCEDURE: 123 American men, shown standard line (x) and 3 other comparison lines (a,b,c) - one is correct. pps in grps of 6-8 with only one genuine pp (seated last or 2nd last in grp)
- say out loud which of comparisons is same length as x
- Confederates all gave the same (incorrect) scripted ans each time
- FINDINGS: avg - conformed to incorrect ans 36.8% of the time
- ind diff - 25% pps never gave wrong ans
- 75% conformed at least once
Variable investigated: Unanimity
- P: Inds more likely to conform when group is unanimous (all give same ans)
- E: 1st variation - dissenter (confederate who disagrees with other confeds) 2nd variation - confed who gave the right ans
- In the presence of dissenter conformity drops to less than a quarter of the lvl when the majority was unanimous
- E: Dissenter freed the pp to be more independent (even when the dissenter disagreed with the pp)
- L: Unaniminity = vital for influence on the majority to a large extent (NSI)
Group Size
Variables Asch researched - looking further to what inc/dec conformity
- Varied the number of confederates (1-15)
- P: individuals more likely to conform in larger group up till a certain point
- E: 3 confeds –> conformity rose to 31.8%, but more made little diff (so 3 or 4 is the optimal num of confeds)
- E: High conformity if all/most are in agreement = Inc confidence in the correctness of the group, dec correctness of own ans
- L: Suggets that most are sensitive to views of others as 1 or 2 is enough to sway some opinion
Task Difficulty
- P: Individuals are more likely to conform when the task is difficult
- E: Asch made the standard line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length - harder for geunine pp to see the difference
- E: Conformity inc - the situation may be more ambiguous when the task becomes harder. As it unclear to the pps what ans is right they naturally look to others for guidance + assume they are right and themselves are wrong (ISI)
- L: Suggets ISI is a major mechanism for conformity
Weakness
EVAL: Lacks ecological validity
This tasked is based on people’s perceptions of lines - these findings cannot be generalised to real life as it does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity. There may be many other confounding variables (affects IV + DV) and majorities exert influence irrespective of being a large group.
Weakness
EVAL: Ethical issues
Naive participants were decieved because they thought that the others involved with the procedure (confederates) were also genuine participants like themselves.
* There could have been psychological harm as the participants could have been embarrassed after realising the true aims of the study
Strength
EVAL: Research support
There have been other studies which support Asch’s research for the effects of task difficulty. Todd Lucas et al (2006) asked pps to solve ‘easy’ + ‘hard’ math problems. Pps were given asnwers from 3 other students (confeds). The pps conformed more often when the problems were harder. Shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is 1 variable that affects conformity.
Strength
EVAL:
