Outline and evaluate research into conformity (Jenness and Asch)

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

Jenness 1932 was a lab experiment with repeated measures and opportunity sampling which asked 101 male and female psychology students to make private estimations of the number of white beans in a jar

ambiguous task as correct task was unclear meaning participants felt uncertain about their own previous responses and invested greater trust in the group estimation

participants then discussed their answers in a large group, before agreeing on a group estimation

participants then made a second private estimation and the difference between the first and second private estimation was recorded

Jenness found that individual’s second private estimation moved closer towards the group estimation (for the male participants, the mean of their first private estimation was 790 beans, whilst the mean of their second estimation was 695 beans)

Female participants were more likely to conform than men

this suggests participants changed their estimation (e.g. males changed by a mean of 95 beans) because they privately and publicly agreed with the majority group, giving evidence for internalisation

this can be explained by informational social influence because they wanted to be right and they believed that others held the correct answer

Question 2

Limit Jenness

Answer 2

a limitation of this study is that it has low ecological validity

which is when the findings cannot be generalised to a variety of real-life settings, decreasing the external validity of research

this is because the procedure used a highly controlled laboratory setting and asked participants to make a judgement that is not similar to an everyday situation

therefore, the findings may tell us very little about conformity in real life

Question 3

Limit Jenness 2

Answer 3

a limitation of this study is that it has low population validity

which is when the findings cannot be generalised to wider populations, decreasing the external validity of research

this is because the procedure only used 101 psychology students

meaning it is difficult to apply the findings beyond this small group to other populations

Question 4

Limit Jenness 3

Answer 4

a final limitation of this study is that participants experienced deception

which is when participants are mislead by the procedure of the study

this is because jenness could not inform participants of his anticipated findings before the investigation without causing a negative impact on the findings of research

however, modern BPS ethics committees are likely to accept this deception because the implications are limited: participants were likely to have left in a frame of mind that was “at least as sound as when they entered” Aronson 1988