social influence A03

Question 1

Evaluate Asch’s Line study

Answer 1

-Limitation: situation and task were artificial
Ppts knew they were in a research study= demand characteristics
Fiske argued ‘Groups were not very groupy’
Findings do not generalise to everyday life
-Limitation: findings have little application
Only American men were tested
USA is an individualist culture and studies in collectivist cultures (China) have found higher conformity rates
Tells us little about conformity in women and other cultures
-Strength: Supporting evidence
Lucas et al asked ppts to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems, ppts were given answers that claimed to be from 3 other students
Ppts conformed more often when problems were harder
Shows Asch was correct in Task Difficulty variable (COUNTERPOINT: conformity is more complex, related to confidence. high confidence=less conformity, shows individual level factors interact with situational ones)