Factors affecting conformity (lesson 2) Flashcards
A01 and A03
what was the Aim of Ash’s line experiment
his aim was to test how easily people are willing to conform when pressured by a majority. His results were important not just in minority influences, but also group interaction.
what was the procedure of the Ash line experiment
he told participants they were taking part in a visual perception task (deception) and tested with 7-9 confederates (aware of the aim). two white cards were displayed, the first card showed a standard line. the second showed 3 comparison lines with one the same length as the standard line. the group was asked on 18 trials what comparison line was the same as the standard line. on 12 critical trials, the Confederates gave the wrong answers.
what were the findings of the Ash line experiments
conformity was 32 percent compared to 0.04 percent for a control group. with 75 % of people conforming at least once and 5% conforming all 12 times
what were the three reasons for conforming within this experiment
1- distortion of perception - a small number of participants came to see the lines in the same way as the majority
2- distortion of judgement - they were doubtful or unsure of their own judgement
3- distortion of action - most participants continued to privately think differently from the group, but changed their answer to avoid public disapproval
describe Ash’s variations that effected conformity
variation of the study 1- task difficulty. this increased conformity as it was more difficult for those who weren’t so confident and relied on peer information.
variation of the study 2- the majority of the group increased. this increased conformity however only up to a point. after 3 people there was no change in conformity increasing.
variation of the study 3- one more confederate was added who answered correctly. there was a massive decrease in conformity down to 5.5 % because the unanimity was broken. even when they answered neither correctly or with the majority level of conformity still decreased to 9.9%.
what critical evaluative research was there supplied by Perrin and spencer
in a replication of the study with British engineering students they found over 396 trials only one student conformed. this means that the study may suffer from temporal validity, it may have only been true at the time because of political pressure to conform due to the cold war.
what supporting research was supplied by Rosander in 2011
Rosander used facebook, twitter and other online communities to investigate task difficulty in conformity. logic and general knowledge questions were posted for participants to answer. online confederates provided wrong answers to half of the participants. results showed that participants conformed to wrong answers and there was an increase in conformity on harder less well-known questions. demonstrating that Ash’s research is still relevant today.
why did Asch’s study suffer from Bias
because only men were used in the study, therefore it may have suffered from bias. however the study was later repeated with female participants and the same results were concluded.
why does the study lack mundane realism
because it was an unnatural setting and most likely wouldn’t occur the way it did in the real world
why did the study suffer from demand characteristics
because the confederates within the study were regular people and not actors it could have been possible for the PPS to guess the aim of the study.
