Research into Conformity- Asch's line study

Question 1

Procedure of the line study

Answer 1

123 male undergraduates

Each round had one real ppt, the rest were confederates

Ppts were asked to look at 3 lines of different lengths, and compare it to the ‘standard line’.

They were asked to say which of the 3 lines was the same length as the ‘standard line’

Confederates were made to give an incorrect answer 12/18 times

Question 2

Results of the line study

Answer 2

Conformity was 33% when confederates gave an incorrect answer (12/18 of the times)

Control group only made a mistake 1% of the time (no confederates)

1/4 of participants NEVER conformed

1/2 of ppts conformed on 6 or more

1 ppt conformed on all 12

Question 3

What were the three variations in Asch’s line study?

Answer 3

Group size

Task difficulty

Unanimity

Question 4

Group size

Answer 4

Almost no conformity when there were 1 or 2 confederates

When there were 3 confederates, conformity was 30%

Conformity went up as group size did to a point, until it didn’t increase any further

Question 5

Task difficulty

Answer 5

Asch made it harder by making the lines more similar in length for one variation

The level of conformity increased

Ppts with high self-efficacy remained independent, whilst ppts with low self-efficacy conformed more

Question 6

Unanimity

Answer 6

When all confederates gave DIFFERENT incorrect answers, conformity levels dropped

Question 7

AO3 -

Biased Sample

Answer 7

Asch used a sample of only male students

Findings can’t be applied to other groups, such as female students

Therefore the study lacks population validity

Question 8

AO3 -

Low ecological validity

Answer 8

The task Asch got the ppts to carry out is an artificial task.

This does not reflect conformity in everyday life

Therefore unable to generalise findings to everyday life scenarios, such as why people start smoking around friends

Question 9

AO3 -

Problems with determining the effects of group size

Answer 9

This study and other studies only use limited majority sizes

Asch used a maximum majority of 3 confederates

Other studies have only used up to 9

Suggests that we don’t know the effects of larger majority sizes on conformity

Question 10

AO3 -

Ethical issues

Answer 10

Asch deceived ppts by telling them they were taking part in a vision test

This was done to avoid demand characteristics

Deception is unethical. As well as this, ppts reported feeling stressed when they chose an answer different to the majority