Conformity: Asch Flashcards
Who was the psychologist behind testing conformity in 1951 and 1955?
Solomon Asch
What was the procedure behind Asch’s research into conformity?
Asch tested conformity by showing participants two cards. One card would show a “standard line” and the other card were there “comparison lines”. One of the three lines were the same length as the standard and the other two were always clearly wrong. The participant was then asked which line matched the standard
Who were the participants in this research, how many partcipants were involved in this research?
There were 123 American male undergraduates participants
Asch was interested in conditions that may lead to an increase or decrease in conformity. What were the three variations he tested?
- Group size
- Unamity
- Task difficulty
What were the findings of Asch’s research?
The naive participant gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time. Overall 75% of the participants conformed at least on the trials. When participants were interviewed afterwards most said they conformed to avoid rejection.(normative social influence)
What does the term “Asch effect” describe?
The Asch effect has been used to describe the extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous
How did Asch use group size to test the conditions that may lead to an increase or decrease in conformity?
Asch found that with three confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. The addition of further confederates made little difference. Therefore suggesting a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but there is n need for a majority of more than three
How did Asch use unanimity to test the conditions that may lead to an increase or decrease in conformity?
Asch introduced a confederate who disagree with others, sometimes giving the correct answer, other times giving the wrong answer. The presence of a dissenting confederate meant that conformity reduced by a quarter and enabled the naive participant to behave more independently. This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous
How did Asch use task difficulty to test the conditions that may lead to an increase or decrease in conformity?
Asch made the line judging task more difficult by making the standard line and comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity increased under these conditions. This suggests that informational social influence played a greater role when tasks became harder because the situation was more ambiguous
Under what conditions did the conformity rate in Asch’s variations decrease?
A. When the size of the majority increased from two to five
B. When the task was made harder
C. When a dissenting confederate disagreed with majority
D. None of the above
C
What is a weakness of Asch’s research? (a child of its time)
Asch’s research lacks temporal validity. Perring and Spencer have repeated Asch’s original study with engineering students in the UK. This research resulted in only one student conforming in a total of 396 trials. Psychologists explained this as the engineering students feeling more confident comparing line lengths, which would have led them to being less conformist. Additionally, it could be argued people in America, during the 1950s were more conformist and it made more sense to conform to the established norms. This is a limitation of Asch’s research because it means the asch effect is not consistent across situations and may not be consistent across time, so is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour
What is a weakness of Asch’s research? (artificial task and situation)
In Asch’s research the participants knew they were in a research study. As a result they may have just gone along with the demands of the situations. This would have resulted in demand characteristics presenting in the participants. Additionally even though Asch’s naive participants were apart of a group they did not resemble groups that we are apart of in everyday life. This is a limitation because it means that the findings do not generalise to everyday situations. This is especially true where the consequences of conformity might be more important since we interact with other people in groups in a much more way.
What is a weakness of Asch’s research? (limited application of findings)
Asch’s research only american men were tested. Other research has suggested that women might be conformist possibly because women tend to be concerned about social relationships than men. Asch’s study was conducted in America, with an individualist culture. Similar conformity studies have been conducted in collectivist cultures, China for example, and found that conformity rates were higher. This shows that since gender and cultural differences were not considered, Asch’s findings may only apply apply to American men, making them lack population validity.
