Lesson 3- variables affecting conformity

Question 1

Asch (1951)

Answer 1

-naive participant in a group with several confederates
-the group was asked to look at a standard line and then decide individually which of the three other test line s was the same length as the standard without discussing
-gave responses one at a time out loud
-answer was obvious however participants gave the wrong answer on 12 of 18 trials
-participants last or second last to answer so heard the rest of the groups responses before giving their own

Question 2

findings

Answer 2

-chance of making a genuine mistake on task was 1% but 33% of responses were incorrect
-75% of participants conformed in at least one of the 18 trials, 5% conformed on every trial, 25% did not conform on any trial
-interview afterwards found that majority of participants who conformed had trusted their judgement but answered the same as the group to avoid disproval

Question 3

group size

Answer 3

Asch (1956) changed group size, groups with one confederate has conformity rate of 3%, groups with two confederates had a conformity rate of 11%, with three confederates conformity rose to 32%
influence of two people is fairly easy to resist, three people are much harder, little changes when groups reached 4 or more confederates

Question 4

task difficulty

Answer 4

Asch (1956) decided to adjust task difficulty so he made test lines more similar, levels of conformity increased, the more difficult the task the greater informational social influence

Question 5

unanimity

Answer 5

when group had unanimity conformity increased, when only one other person in the group gave different answer from the others conformity dropped
Asch (1956) found that even the presence of just one confederate reduced conformity from 33% to 5%, even when the confederate gave a different wrong answer conformity dropped from 33% to 9%

Question 6

evaluation (5 weaknesses)

Answer 6

-temporal validity, Asch studies were conducted 80 years ago and it is possible people may have been more conformist then than they are now, post war attitudes that people should work together and consent rather than dissent may have affected the results
-mundane realism/ecological validity, the task is artificial and unlikely to occur in real life, conformity usually takes place in a social context with people we know rather than strangers
-gender/cultural biased, sample only contained male participants, study may not represent female behaviour, only included American white men and may not reflect the behaviour of other cultures
however has been replicated since with different samples and cultures and has proven to be reliable
-volunteer sample, behaviour may not represent that of a wider population, does not have population validity and results cannot be generalised
-ethical issues, deception, lack of informed consent, psychological harm, however it was necessary to deceive participants about purpose of study to prevent demand characteristics which would make the study not valid