Conformity-Asch's experiment Flashcards
What was the procedure of the experiment?
Participants were shown cards and they were asked to match a line to another line which was the same size, with two on each card being clearly wrong. There were 123 American undergraduates and each was tested individually with 6-8 confederates. The confederates were asked to all give the same wrong answer a few rounds in.
What were the results of the experiment?
75% of participants conformed at least once and in total there was a conformity rate if 37%. This supported the theory of NSI as they wanted to be liked by other participants.
What variations were there of the experiment?
Group size-Asch found that with 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8% but more confederates than that made no difference.
Unanimity-Another confederate was added who gave the correct answer sometimes and the wrong answer. This decreased conformity.
Task difficulty-Asch made the lines more similar in size and found that conformity increased because of ISI and copying others because you think you are wrong.
What are the limitations of the experiment?
Perrin and Spencer repeated the experiment and only one student conformed, showing it is not consistent across time and situations. It was also an artificial task and environment as they knew they were being studied and may have shown demand characteristics. Only white, American men were experimented on so results can’t be generalised to the population. The participants were also decieved as they didn’t know that the other participants were confederates.
