Conformity-asch

Question 1

Procedure part 2

Answer 1

• 123 american male undergraduates
• each naive participant tested individually along with 6/8 confederates
• naive participant always seated last or next to last
• participant unaware of confederates
• first few trials confederates gave correct answers but then started making errors

Question 2

Procedure: asch line experiment

Answer 2

• showed participants two large white cards at a time
• 1 card contained a standard line
• other card had 3 comparison lines
• one of the 3 comparison lines was the same as the standard
• the other 2 were always clearly wrong
• participants asked which lines matched

Question 3

Findings of asch study

Answer 3

36.8% of the time the naive participant gave the wrong answer
25% of participants did not conform on any trials
75% conformed at least once

Question 4

What variations did asch carry out to test an increase or decrease in conformity?

Answer 4

Group size

Unanimity-another non conformist

Task difficulty

Question 5

Asch variations-group size findings

Answer 5

With 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8% but made little difference.

Question 6

Unanimity

Answer 6

Presence of another non conforming person would effect naive participant

Conformity reduced by a quater

Question 7

Task difficulty

Answer 7

Made the lines more similar in length so answer was more difficult.

Conformity increased

Informational social influence