Research into conformity

Question 1

Who did research into conformity?

Answer 1

Asch (1951)

Question 2

What did Asch aim to test?

Answer 2

Whether people would conform to group pressure, even if that meant giving a clearly wrong answer in a straightforward (unambiguous) line judgement task.

Question 3

When did Asch conduct his study?

Answer 3

1951

Question 4

How many participants did Asch use?

Answer 4

123 American male undergrads

Question 5

What were the participants shown?

Answer 5

A series of lines; the standard line and 3 comparison lines, one of which was the same length as the standard line.

Question 6

How many males were tested at a time?

Answer 6

7 males

Question 7

Out of the 7 males in each test, how many were confederates?

Answer 7

6/7 males were confederates. There was only 1 true participant.

Question 8

On how many trials did Asch instruct the confederates to give a wrong answer?

Answer 8

12 out of 18

Question 9

What did Asch call the trials where the wrong answer was purposely said by the confederates?

Answer 9

Critical trials

Question 10

Where was the true participant sat in the study?

Answer 10

Second to last within the row

Question 11

What was the mean conformity rate?

Answer 11

37%

Question 12

What percentage conformed on every critical trial?

Answer 12

5%

Question 13

What percentage of participants did not conform to any of the critical trials?

Answer 13

25%

Question 14

What did Asch find in a control group of participants who were tested individually?

Answer 14

They gave incorrect answers in 1% of the trials.

Question 15

How did Asch explain his findings?

Answer 15

That the participants would agree with the majority (say the wrong answer purposely with the majority) to avoid standing out from the crowd

Question 16

What did Asch conclude?

Answer 16

Participants were showing compliance.

Question 17

What are the 3 variables that Asch used to further investigate the effects on conformity?

Answer 17

• Unanimity
• Group size
• Task difficulty

Question 18

What is unanimity?

Answer 18

The extent to which all members of a group agree.

Question 19

When is the pressure to conform the highest?

Answer 19

When the majority group are unanimous

Question 20

When testing unanimity, what did he provide the real participant with?

Answer 20

A dissenter (non-conformist ally)

Question 21

What did the dissenter do in the experiment?

Answer 21

The dissenter proved either the correct answer or a different incorrect answer.

Question 22

What did Asch find when a dissenter was present?

Answer 22

The conformity rate dropped from 37% to 25%

Question 23

What did Asch conclude about unanimity?

Answer 23

That when a groups unanimity is broken, it Is a major variable in reducing conformity.

Question 24

When were the conformity rates lowest regarding group size?

Answer 24

When there were only 1 or 2 confederates.

Question 25

At what size did the conformity rates increase?

Answer 25

3 confederates, the conformity rates increased to 32%

Question 26

What happened with further size increases?

Answer 26

Didn’t increase the conformity rate

Question 27

When is a person more likely to conform, when a task is more or less difficult?

Answer 27

More difficult

Question 28

Why do more people conform when there is a difficult task?

Answer 28

They are less confident in their own opinion.

Question 29

What did Asch do to test the task difficulty?

Answer 29

He made the standard line and the comparison lines more similar, conformity rates increased.

Question 30

What are the evaluation points?

Answer 30

\+ Well controlled
- Perrin and Spencer 1981
\+ Easy to replicate
- Low ecological validity
- High demand characteristics 
- Deception

Question 31

Strength of Asch’s conformity research: the study was well controlled

Answer 31

E: controlled setting of a lab made it easy to control extraneous variables
E: control the lighting and lines used to ensure participants could easily judge the length of the lines
L: study measured what it intending to measure, giving it high internal validity

Question 32

Evidence against comes from Perrin and Spencer (1981)

Answer 32

E: When repeating Asch’s study in Britain, only 1 person conformed out of 396 trials.
E: People don’t always conform as much as Asch’s original study suggested
L: lacks temporal validity

Question 33

Strength of Asch’s conformity research: study was easy to replicate
ORIGINAL STUDY ONLY

Answer 33

E: controlled setting of a lab made it easier to replicate the study in exactly the same way, adjusting variables each time to test their influence on conformity.
E: Asch was able to keep everything the same (standardised), but change variables such as the size of the ground difficulty of the task.
L: +ve allowed Asch’s research to test which variables affect conformity the most to gain a better understanding.

Question 34

Weakness of Asch’s research into conformity: Low ecological validity

Answer 34

E: viewed as an artificial setting because it doesn’t represent real-life.
E: In real-life people would usually be able to question why the others were giving incorrect answers in real-life situations but Asch didn’t allow his participants to do this.
L: -ve may not generalise to real life conformity settings and situations

Question 35

Weakness of Asch’s research into conformity: high demand characteristics

Answer 35

E: participants were aware they were taking part in a study, they may have behaved unnaturally
E: they may have tried to please Asch by behaving in a way they thought they were intended to by conforming
L: lower the internal validity

Question 36

Weakness of Asch’s research into conformity: deception

Answer 36

E: critiqued for deliberately deceived participants
E: participants were told that all of the people sat around the table were participants but they were confederates which resulted in many participants reporting feeling embarrassed and foolish after the experiments
L: goes against the ethical code of conduct.

Question 37

What is not possible due to deception?

Answer 37

Full informed consent until afterwards in the debrief.

Question 38

What does Asch argue about using deception?

Answer 38

He wouldn’t have been able to obtain realistic results if he had not used deception.