conformity: Asch's research

Question 1

Asch’s baseline procedure (1951)

Answer 1

• 123 American men were tested with others
• each saw 2 large cards on each trial
• one of the comparison lines is always the same as x
• had to say out loud which of the lines was the same

Question 2

Asch’s baseline procedure (1951): arrangement of ppts

Answer 2

• tested in groups of 6-8 participants
  one was a genuine and others were confederates
  the genuine participant was seated last or 2nd to last

Question 3

Asch’s baseline findings (1951)

Answer 3

• ppts gave a wrong answer 37% of the time
• on 1/3 conformed
• some never conformed = 25%

Question 4

Variables investigated (1955): group size

Answer 4

• he wanted to know if group size would affect the agreement
• he varied the number of confederates from 1-8
• found that conformity increased with group size up to a point
• with 3 confederates conformity to the wrong answer increased to 32%
  suggests that people are sensitive to the opinion of others

Question 5

Variables investigated (1955): unanimity

Answer 5

• he wanted to see if a non-conforming person would affect conformity of ppts
  introduced someone who disagreed with other confederates (dissenter)
• genuine ppts conformed less
• rate decreased to less than ¼ of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
• due to the appearance of confederates it made ppts behave more independantly

Question 6

Variables investigated (1955): task difficulty

Answer 6

• he wanted to if increasing the the difficulty of the task would affect conformity
  increased the difficulty of the line-judging task
  made the stimulus line and comparison lines similar
• conformity increased due to the ambiguousness of the right answer and looked to others for answers

Question 7

AO3: artificial situation & task

Answer 7

• lab experiment so demand characteristics may have been shown as the ppts knew they were in a study
• no consequences of conforming such as people being bullied , not having friends
• the group was not a true reflection of ‘groups’ in real life situation as they didn’t know each other
  reduces ecological validity
• Difficult to generalise the findings

Question 8

AO3: research support

Answer 8

• Lucas et al (2006): asked ppts to solve ‘easy’ & ‘hard’ maths problems
• ppts were given answers from 3 students
• conformity was higher when the tasks were harder
  research supports the task difficulty variation

Question 9

AO3: limited application of findings

Answer 9

• ppts were American men(androcentric & enthocentric)
• Neto (1995): suggests that women may conform more due to social relationships & acceptance
• America is an individualistic culture so we can’t generalise the study to collectivist cultures
• studies on conformity in collectivist cultures (china) found higher conformity rates

Question 10

AO3: individual factors in conformity

Answer 10

• Lucas et al (2006): found that conformity is more complex than Asch said
• ppts who are more confident in maths conformed less on ‘hard’ tasks than those with less confidence
• shows that individual factors can affect conformity which Asch ignored

Question 11

AO3: ethics

Answer 11

• ppt was decepted with thinking the confederates were genuine ppts
• lied to about aim of the study
• the ppts may have been stressed doing the line task
• questioning their own ability (protection from harm)