Conformity Asch A01

Question 1

Conformity

Answer 1

• A change in a persons behaviour
• As a result of real or imagines pressure from a person or group of people

Question 2

Group Size

Answer 2

• increase group size = increased majority
• Conformity increases with group size, but only up to a point

Question 3

Unanimity

Answer 3

• Extent to which all members of group agree
• Greatest degree of conformity in naïve participants

Question 4

Task Difficulty

Answer 4

• Task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the answer
• Increased task difficulty = increased conformity because naïve participants assume majority is right

Question 5

What are the 3 factors influencing conformity?

Answer 5

• Group size
• Unanimity
• Task difficulty

Question 6

What was the purpose of Asch’s baseline study?

Answer 6

• To asses the extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is certain

Question 7

Outline group size in Asch’s Baseline study.

Answer 7

• Wanted to know if size of group was more important than agreement of group
• Varied number of confederated from 1-15
• Found curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
• Conformity increased with group size but only up to a certain point

Question 8

Outline unanimity in Asch’s Baseline study.

Answer 8

• Wondered if presence of non conforming person would affect naïve participants conformity
• Introduced confederates who disagreed with other confederates
• Genuine participants conformed less often in presence of dissenter (dissenter freed naïve participants to behave more freely)

Question 9

Outliine task difficulty in Asch’s Baseline study.

Answer 9

• Wanted to know if making task harder would affect degree of conformity
• Increased difficulty of task by making stimulus line and comparison line more similar to each other in length
• Found that conformity increased with harder tasks
• In harder tasks participants look to others for answers (informational social influence)

Question 10

Outline Asch’s Baseline study.

Answer 10

• 123 Americans tested
• two large white cards
• line X on left side is the standard line ad lines ABC were the comparison lines
• one comparison line is always clearly the same length as the standard line and the other two were substantially different
• Participants were asked to say out loud which comparison line was the same as the standard line
• There was only one genuine participant and they didn’t know everyone else was fake participants