Social Influence - Asch - Baseline study

Question 1

Solomon Asch Aims (1951)

Answer 1

devised a procedure to measure the extent that people conformed to the opinions of others, even when in a situation when the answer was clearly wrong.

Question 2

procedure variable 1 - Group size

Answer 2

(1955) Asch extended his baseline study and varied the number of confederates in each group between 1 and 15 (total group size between 2 and 16)

Question 3

Who?

Answer 3

Participants - 123 American Male undergraduates

Question 4

Procedure

Answer 4

Tested individually, sitting last or next to last in a group of 6-8 confederates.
Shown two large cards.
One had a standard line.
The other three comparison lines.
One line the same as the standard line with the other two lines clearly different.
Each group member asked which of the three lines matched the standard.
18 Trials of involving different cards.

Question 5

How many?

Sitting where?

Answer 5

Sitting last or next to last in a group of 6-8 confederates.

Question 6

Findings of variable 1 - Group size

Answer 6

The relationship between group size and level of conformity was curvilinear.
If there were two confederates, conformity to the wrong answer was 13.6%.
When there were three confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%.
Above three confederates, confederates rate levelled off.
Adding more than three confederates made a little difference.

Question 7

Explanation of Procedure variable 1 - Group size

Answer 7

People very sensitive to opinions of other people because just one confederate was enough to sway opinion.

Question 8

Procedure of variable 2 - Unanimity

Answer 8

Asch added the presence of a non-conforming person to see if they would effect the naive participants conformity.
Added a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates.

Question 9

Findings of variable 2 - Unanimity

Answer 9

In one variation of the study this person gave the right answer and in another variation they gave the wrong.
in the presence of a dissenter the genuine participant conformed less often.
the rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous.

Question 10

Explanation of Variable 2 - Unanimity

Answer 10

the presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently.

Question 11

Procedure of variable 3 - Task difficulty

Answer 11

Asch increased the difficulty of the line - judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length.
This meant it became harder to distinguish the right line.

Question 12

Findings of variable 3 - Task difficulty

Answer 12

Asch found that conformity increased .

It may be that the situation is more ambiguous. when the task becomes harder.

Question 13

Explanation of variable 3 - Task difficulty

Answer 13

It is natural to look to other people for guidance and assume that they are right and you are wrong. (ISI)

Question 14

Evaluation - one limitation - artificial tasks

Answer 14

Participants knew they were in a research study. The task was trivial and there was no reason not to conform.

Question 15

Evaluation - one limitation - Fiske (2014)

Answer 15

Argued that Asch’s groups were not ‘very groupy’

not like real life

Question 16

Evaluation - one limitation - artificial tasks - what does this mean?

Answer 16

This means that the findings do not generalise to everyday life.

Question 17

Evaluation - one limitation - little application - Neto (1995)

Answer 17

Only American men were tested.

Neto suggested that women might be more conformist because they are more concerned with social acceptance.

Question 18

Evaluation - one limitation - little application - Bond and Smith (1996)

Answer 18

The USA is an individualist culture and studies in collectivist cultures (e.g. China) have found higher conformity rates.

Question 19

Evaluation - one limitation - little application - what does this mean?

Answer 19

This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and some cultures.

Question 20

Evaluation - one strength - support Asch - Lucas (2006)

Answer 20

Asked participants to to solve easy and hard math problems. participants were given answers that were falsely claimed by three other students.

Question 21

Evaluation - one strength - support Asch - Lucas findings (2006)

Answer 21

The participants conformed more often when the questions were harder.

Question 22

Evaluation - one strength - support Asch - What does this mean?

Answer 22

This shows that Asch was correct - task difficulty was one variable affecting conformity.

Question 23

Evaluation - one strength - support Asch - counterpoint - individual factors.

Answer 23

Conformity is more complex.
Lucas et al. showed that conformity was related to confidence.
This shows that that individual - level factors interact with situational ones, but Asch did not investigate individual factors.

Question 24

Evaluation - one limitation - ethical issues

Answer 24

When participants are deceived they cannot give their informed consent to take part and may have a negative experience.