Sherif (1935)

Question 1

What was the method?

Answer 1

• Sherif used the autokinetic effect.
• Participants were led to believe that someone was moving the light.
• They were asked to guess how far the light moved.
• They were tested in three phases.
• Phase 1 made the participants guess individually.
• Phase 2 made the participants guess in groups of three.
• Phase 3 made the participants guess individually again.

Question 2

What is the autokinetic effect?

Answer 2

• A dot of light is projected onto a screen in a dark room.
• The light appears to move even though it’s not moving.
• The dot appearing to move is a visual illusion.

Question 3

What were the results?

Answer 3

• In phase 1 individual guesses varied a lot, from 20cm to 80cm.
• In phase 2 participant’s guesses tended to converge to a common estimate.
• In phase 3 individuals made guesses closer to the common group estimates than their initial estimates.

Question 4

What was concluded?

Answer 4

• Displayed how individuals look to others for guidance when they face ambiguous situations.
• When individuals don’t have all the information they need, they look to others for information- known as informational conformity.
• Participants were influenced by other participants’ estimates, thus they were influenced by informational conformity.

Question 5

What were the strengths of the experiment?

Answer 5

• Variables were strictly controlled in the laboratory.
• This meant that a third variable shouldn’t have influenced the results and thus can establish a cause and effect.
• Additionally, this meant the method was replicable.

Question 6

What were the weaknesses of the experiment?

Answer 6

• The deception of the participants believing the stationary light was moving is an ethical issue.
• Only males participated meaning the generalisability is reduced.
• It’s an artificial situation meaning it has low ecological validity and thus cannot be generalised well to real-life situations.