Conformity: Asch's Research

Question 1

Procedure

Answer 1

Showed 123 participants American male undergraduates 2 white cards at a time. One was standard line and other card was 3 comparison lines. One of the 3 lines was right and the other 2 were clearly wrong. Each participant were tested individually with 6 confederates. On 1st 6 trials all confederates gave right answers but then the next 12 trials all gave same wrong answers as instructed.

Question 2

Findings

Answer 2

The naïve actual participant gave wrong answer 36.8% of the time. Overall 25% didn’t conform on any trials meaning 75% conformed at least once. Interviewed afterwards to find out that they conformed to avoid rejection: NSI.

Question 3

Why did Asch make variations afterwards?

Answer 3

He was interested in what might lead to an increase or decrease in conformity

Question 4

The Variations?

Answer 4

Group size, Unanimity, Task difficulty

Question 5

Group size

Answer 5

Wanted to know if the group size would be more important than the agreement of the group. When 3 confederates, higher conformity

Question 6

Unanimity

Answer 6

Introduced a confederate who would disagree with the others: dissenter. Presence of this confederate made the naïve participant behave more independently as conformity fell.

Question 7

Task Difficulty

Answer 7

Making lines more similar in length. Conformity increased. ISI plays a greater role when task becomes harder. This is because task is more ambiguous as likely to look to others for guidance.

Question 8

Weakness (Perrin and Spencer)

Answer 8

A child of its time. Repeated Asch study with UK engineering students. 1 student only conformed out of 396. This could be because it was done 30 years later and back then it was conformist time in America and made sense to conform. Now society has changed and people conform less. Limitation as Asch exp. isnt a great example to use as it isn’t consistent across time.

Question 9

Weakness

Answer 9

Limited application of findings. Only men were tested and women might be more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships than men. Also Asch’s findings may only apply to American men as he didn’t take gender and culture into account.

Question 10

Weakness

Answer 10

Findings only apply to certain situations. Psychologists found out that conformity was higher when with friends rather than strangers.

Question 11

Weakness

Answer 11

Ethical issues. Naïve participants were deceived as they thought the confederates were genuine participants.