Conformity - Aschs Research Flashcards
What was the procedure of aschs experiment
Showed participants two large white cards with either the standard line or 3 comparison lines
One of the lines was the same length and the other two were substantially different
Confederate gave right answer first few times but then gave same wrong answer in 12 out of the 18 critical trials
Who took part in aschs experiment
123 American male undergraduates
Naive participant was tested individually with 6 -8 confederates
What were the findings oh aschs study
Naive participant gave wrong answer 36.8% of teh time
25% didn’t conform on any trails
75% conformed at least once
Aschs effect
What did participants say in the interview afterwards
They confirmed to avoid rejection
Normative social influence
What were aschs variations
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
What happened when asch investigates group size
3 confederates
Conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
But addition of further confederates made little difference
What happened when aschs invtestigated unanimity
Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others
Presence of a dissenter meant conformity reduced by a quarter
What happened when asch investigates task difficulty
He made the line judging task more difficult
Conformity increased
Informational social influence played greater role
How did Perrin and spencer show aschs findings were inconsistent across situations and time
Why did this happen
Repeated aschs study on engineering students in the uk
Only 1 student conformed
Engineering students are more confident with measuring lines
1950s was a conformist time in America and made sense to conform to norms
What are problems with aschs study and why is this a limitation
Demand characteristics as participants knew they were in a research study
Identifying lines is an artificial task
Limitation as means you can’t generalise findings
Why is aschs research gender bias
Only used men
Research suggests women are more conformist because they are more concderned with social relationships
Why is it culturally relative
Aschs men were all from America an individualist culture
In collectivist cultures liek China research has shown confmirty rates to be higher
So aschs findings can only apply to America men
What are the ethical issues with aschs research
Participants were deceived
