Conformity-Asch Flashcards
Outline the procedure of Solomon Asch’s baseline conformity study (1951)
-Showed 3 different lines to 123 American white participants ,who were in room with 6-8 confederates, and asked them to pick which line was identical to the standard line.
-the confederates would all give the correct answer in the first 6 trials but for the remaining 12 all gave incorrect answer
Outline the findings of Asch’s baseline conformity study (1951)
-Naive participant conformed 36.8% all of the time
-75% of participants conformed at least once on a trial
-interviewed after the experiment and said they conformed to avoid rejection
What were Asch’s 3 variations?
-Group size- bigger size increases conformity but at 3 confederates were enough to produce rates of 31.8% conformity which increase little more
-unanimity - dissenting confederate reduced conformity rates to 1/4 of baseline
-task difficulty - harder line judging tasks increased conformity rates
What are the strengths of Asch’s study?
-research support: Lucas et al. (2006) found that people conform more when maths questions are harder which supports that task difficulty increases conformity rates
What are the weaknesses of Asch’s study?
-artificial task: line judging tasks are quite artificial and the participants may have been prone to demand characteristics and guessed the expectations of the study. Also susan fiske (2014) said “asch’s groups weren’t very groupy” so may not reflect real life situations”
-limited application: only 123 white american men.
Neto (1995) said women may conform more as they care more about relationships and approval. Furthermore USA is individualistic so may conform less than collectivist cultures so this may be a limited explanation.
