Social Influence (Asch's Line Experiment)

Question 1

Who did Asch’s Line Experiment and in what year??🖇️

Answer 1

Solomon Asch in 1951

Question 2

Summarise Asch’s Line Experiment!

Answer 2

• One naive ppt in a group of confederates
• Ppts given 4 lines. 3 of which were on the right and 1 on the left.
• Ppts told to guess which of the 3 was the same length as the one of the left.
• Line lengths were very clearly different
• Confederates told to deliberately answer wrong
• Due to group pressure, naïve ppt would occasionally answer wrong due to conformity

Question 3

What’s the main statistic that came from Asch’s Line Experiment??🔢

Answer 3

75% of ppts answered wrong atleast once

Question 4

Discuss the generalisability and reliability of Asch’s Line Experiment!

Answer 4

Not generalisable (all ppts white American males in high school)
Nelo (1995) -> Women are more conformist as they’re more concerned about social relationships & perceptions than men

High reliability (Controlled environment so can be replicated)

Question 5

Describe the Application and Validity of Asch’s Line Experiment!

Answer 5

Low application (task wasn’t representative of real-life situations & group wasn’t representative of who we’d be around irl)

Internal validity (Controlled conditions)

Question 6

Discuss the Ethics of Asch’s Line Experiment!

Answer 6

Deception (given wrong aim that it was a vision test)
Privacy & Confidentiality
Protection & Harm (subject to embarrassment)

Question 7

What type of bias is Asch’s Line Experiment subject to??📄

Answer 7

Culture bias -> done with a collectivist culture (they do everything together so are more likely to conform)