research into conformity - asch

Question 1

aim of asch’s procedure

Answer 1

to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform

Question 2

the procedure of asch’s study

Answer 2

• 123 male students participated in a ‘vision test’. - each person in the room had to say whether lines A, B or C matched exhibit 1.
• the answer was always obvious. The confederates had previously agreed in advance what their answer would be.
• the 1 real participant was not aware of this.
• there were 16 rounds, 12 of which were clinical trials.

Question 3

results of asch’s study

Answer 3

• on average around 1/3 of the participants conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the clinical trials
• for the 12 clinical trials, around 25% of participants never conformed and around 75% conformed at least once.

Question 4

how did difficulty affect conformity

Answer 4

harder the task - increased conformity

Question 5

how was the difficulty of the task in asch’s study changed

Answer 5

• asch made the difference between the line lengths smaller
• this made them appear closer together so made it more difficult than the original task.

Question 6

research support for difficulty of the task

Answer 6

Lucas (2006) difficult maths problems = more conformity due to ISI

Question 7

how did changing the size of the majority affect results

Answer 7

Very small group = decrease conformity
Large scale group = increase conformity

Question 8

how was the size of the group changed in asch’s study

Answer 8

• variations ranged from 1 confederate to 15. 1 confederate = participants conformed 3% of critical trials
• 2 confederates = 12.8% conformity. 3 confederates = 32% conformity, same as original with 7 confederates

Question 9

research support to contradict size of majority

Answer 9

Bond (2005) argued that Normative influence is likely to be strong when..

Question 10

how did unanimity affect conformity for asch’s study

Answer 10

unanimous verdict = increased conformity
disturbed unanimity = decreased conformity

Question 11

how was unanimity changed for asch’s study

Answer 11

• one variation = 1 confederate told to give correct answer. 5% conformity
• another variation = 2 confederates gave a different incorrect answer to majority, Conformity = 9%

Question 12

research study to contradict unanimity

Answer 12

• moscovici (1969) found that in the consistent condition, the real participants only agreed 1.25% of the trials
• a consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than an inconsistent minority