psychology : evaluation of asch's research

Question 1

what is a strength of asch’s research ? (SUPPORT)

Answer 1

support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty

Question 2

who supported asch’s research and what was their findings ?

Answer 2

lucas et al (2006)
- asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems
- participants were given answers from 3 other students and it was found that the participant agreed with the wrong answers more often when the problems were harder

Question 3

how does support asch’s theory ?

Answer 3

• shows asch’s correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity and therefore supports his findings

Question 4

what did the researcher who provided support also find ? (LIMIT)

Answer 4

lucas et al –> founf that conformity is more complex than Asch first suggested

Question 5

how is conformity more complicated that suggested ?

Answer 5

• as participants with high confidence in their maths abilities were found to conform less on hard tasks than those with low confidence

Question 6

how does this show that asch didn’t take something into account ?

Answer 6

• shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables (e.g. task difficulty)
  –> something asch didn’t take into account

Question 7

what is limitation of asch’s research towards the task ?

Answer 7

task and situation were very artificial

Question 8

what may have made participants have demand characteristics ?

Answer 8

• due to the fact that the set up was unbelievable
  –> parciptants may have been very aware that they were being deceived about the nature of the study and guessed the real aim

Question 9

what could this mean for asch’s result ?

Answer 9

• may actually be due to people guessing what is expected of them and going along with it (demand characteristics )

Question 11

what is a limitation of asch’s research in terms of (people) ?

Answer 11

• his sample of 123 male students from colleges in america

Question 12

what does other research suggest abt the opposite gender ?

Answer 12

• women might be more conformist,possibly because they are more concerned about social relationship than men (Neto , 1995)

Question 13

what is the problem of where it was conducted ?

Answer 13

A’s study was conducted in the US - an individualist culture
- where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social group .

Question 14

what do studies done in collectivist culture suggest and supported by ?

Answer 14

• where the social group is more important than the individual have found that conformity rates are higher ( Bond and Smith 1996)

Question 15

what does the limitation suggest about asch’s work ?

Answer 15

• shows that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than the Asch found
• Asch’s findings acctually tell us very little about conformity in women in other culturest