Conformity (Asche’s Study) Flashcards
What is social influence
The process by which our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by other people
What is conformity
When a person changes their behaviours, attitudes and/ or values due to real or imagined group pressure
Aim of Asche’s (1951)study
Conducted a lab experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
Procedure of Asche’s (1951) baseline/ original study
The study involved 123 male American undergraduate students. Each participant was placed in a room with seven confederates (actors who were in on the experiment and instructed to give predetermined answers).Participants were told they were taking part in a vision test. They were shown a standard line and three comparison lines (labelled A, B, and C) and asked to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length.The real participant was always seated last or second to last, ensuring they heard the answers of the confederates before giving their own. In 12 out of 18 trials critical trials), the confederates were instructed to all give the same incorrect answer. The aim was to see whether the participant would conform to the obviously wrong majority answer, despite the correct answer being clear.
findings of Asche’s (1951) baseline study
-32% of the responses conformed to the incorrect majority on the critical trials.
-75% conformed at least once.
-25% never conformed at all.
Describe variation 1 of Asche’s (1951) study on group size
-Aim: To see if the size of the majority affects conformity.
-When there was 1 confederate, conformity was 3%.
-With 2 confederates, it rose to 13%.
-With 3 confederates, conformity increased to 32% (same as in the original study).
-More than 3 confederates didn’t significantly increase conformity further.
-Conclusion: A small majority is not sufficient to produce high conformity, but more than 3 has little added effect — group pressure plateaus.
Describe variation 2 of Asche’s (1951) study on unanimity
-Aim: To test whether conformity is affected if one confederate disagrees with the majority.
-When one confederate gave the correct answer, conformity dropped to 5%.
-Even if the dissenter gave a different wrong answer, conformity still dropped to 9%.
-Conclusion: The presence of social support (breaking group unanimity) reduces conformity significantly, showing that unanimity is a key factor.
Describe variation 3 of Asche’s (1951) study on task difficulty
-Aim: To investigate whether making the task harder would increase conformity.
-Asch made the line lengths more similar, making it harder to judge the correct answer.
-Under these conditions, conformity increased.
-Conclusion: When people are less confident in their judgment, they are more likely to look to others for guidance — this suggests informational social influence plays a greater role when the task is more ambiguous.
Factors that affect conformity as found in Asche’s (1951) study
-Group size
-Unanimity
-Task difficulty
Evaluation of Asche’s (1951) stdy on variables affecting conformity
-Support from other studies for the effect of task difficulty (Lucas et al)
-The situation and task were artificial
-Findings have limited application
-Ethical issues
Who supports the effect of task difficulty
Lucas et al
What did Lucas et al find?
-Lucas et al. asked participants to solve easy and hard math problems, with answers provided by three confederates. They found that participants were more likely to conform to the incorrect answers when the problems were harder, suggesting that task difficulty influences conformity.
-This supports Asche in saying that task difficulty is a variable that affects conformity as when the problems were hard, they were more likely to to inform to the incorrect answers.
Criticism of Lucas et al’s study
However, they also discovered that participants with high confidence in their math abilities conformed less on difficult tasks compared to those with low confidence. This shows that individual factors (like confidence) interact with situational factors (such as task difficulty) to affect conformity.
-This highlights that conformity is more complex tan Asch suggested, as individuals factors were not considered in his study,
Why does Asche’s research raise ethical issues
-Asche’s research has been accused of being unethical. One of these being deception.
-Participants were misled about the true aim of the study and believed that the other people in the room were real participants, when in fact they were confederates. As a result, they were unable to give fully informed consent, which goes against ethical guidelines. Additionally, participants may have experienced psychological harm, such as stress, embarrassment, or anxiety, especially when giving answers that differed from the majority. This could have caused discomfort, particularly in a public setting. Although Asch debriefed participants afterwards and many reported that they had enjoyed the study, these ethical concerns remain significant.
-Therefore, while the deception was necessary to study real conformity, the research does raise important ethical issues that limit how ethically acceptable it would be considered today.
Why is it a limitation that the study involved an artificial situation and task (methological issues)
-The task and situation were artificial, which reduces the ecological validity of the findings. Participants were asked to judge line lengths — a trivial and meaningless task — with no real consequences, making it very different from real-life situations where conformity may involve moral decisions or social pressure with greater significance. Participants also knew they were in a study, so they may have shown demand characteristics, conforming simply because they believed that was what was expected of them. Furthermore, although participants were placed in a group, it did not reflect the kinds of real-life groups people are part of. As Fiske (2014) commented, “Asch’s groups were not very groupy.” This suggests the social interaction was limited and unrepresentative of genuine group dynamics.
-Therefore, the study may not accurately reflect how people conform in everyday social situations, especially those involving more emotionally charged or meaningful interactions.
Why does Asch’s study have limited generalisability
-All the participants were male American college students in the 1950s, meaning the findings may not apply to other groups, such as women, people of different ages, cultures, or time periods. For example, later research has found that women may be more conformist than men, possibly due to higher concern with social relationships. This reduces the study’s populational validity.
-Additionally, the study took place in a highly conformist era in the United States (post-war 1950s), when social norms emphasised fitting in. This means the results may not be the same in more individualistic or modern societies.
-Therefore, Asch’s findings may not generalise to how people conform today or across different populations.
What group of people did Asch’s study focus on
Only American Males= low populational validity
