Line Experiment Flashcards
What was the aim
To investigate the degree to which individuals will conform to a majority who gave obvious wrong answers
Who where the participant
123 male us students in a visual perception test
What was their task
Saying out loud which line abc matched the length of the stimulus lines the correct answer was always obvious
How were the participants positioned
There was only 1 participant the rest were confederates the genuine participant sat at the end and was the last one to answer the confederate answers 12/18 times wrong
What was the control group finding
There were only 3/720 mistakes showing how obvious the answer was
What was 37%
The average conformity rate across 12 trials
What was 5%
The number of participants who confirmed to all 12 wrong answers
What was 75%
The participants who confirmed to at least one wrong answer
What was 25%
Participants who didn’t conform to any wrong answers
What was the conclusion made
Judgement of individuals are affected by majority opinions of others there is a strong tendency to conform to group pressure even when answer is obviously wrong as conformity was public not private it was likely to be nsi
Scientific methods
Asch has high control over variable such as number of confederates in the room and the specific images used this reduce the effect of extranoues variables which strengthen the cause and effect link
Also the standardised procedure means the experiment can be replicated so the experiment is more reliable consequent LG increasing confidence in finding of the experiment
Artificial stimulation Stasi
Task is artificial in two ways one the group of ppl the participants are with it is unrealistic group spend time together and become well known to each other so group situation is artificial also the take of line matchingnit doesn’t carry the same pressure weight as in an event jury service when there is pressure to conform as someone’s life is on the line
As a result the task is very artificial and unsilair to real life so cannot be used
Lacks population validity
All male sample women are more likely to conform as they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted so conformity rates may be higher in women also collectivist culture you wold expect to see higher conformity rates as the group looks out for the needs of each other thus the finding in this experiment cannot be generalised for the rest of the population
