social influence: Asch's line study Flashcards
What was his aim
to assess how much people will conform to the opinion of others in a situation where the answer is certain
This involved showing participants two cards with a standard line and three comparison lines.
What was shown on the two cards in Asch’s study?
One card had a standard line and the other had three comparison lines
One comparison line matched the length of the standard line, while the other two were clearly wrong.
Who were the participants in Asch’s conformity study?
123 American male undergraduates
Each naïve participant was tested individually with a group of confederates.
How many confederates were present in each trial?
Between 6 and 8 confederates
Confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer after initially giving the correct answer.
How many trials did each participant take part in?
18 trials
On 12 critical trials, confederates provided the wrong answer.
results
Naïve participants gave a wrong answer about 37% of the time
Participants conformed on 32% of critical trials
25% of participants did not conform/75% conformed at least once
What percentage of the time did naïve participants give a wrong answer?
About 37% of the time
this indicates a significant level of conformity.
What percentage of participants conformed at least once in Asch’s study?
75% of participants conformed at least once
25% did not conform at all.
What does the Asch effect refer to?
The extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous
It highlights the influence of social pressure.
Why did most participants say they conformed during interviews?
To avoid rejection > This suggests the role of social acceptance in conformity.
Does Asch’s study support normative social influence or informational social influence?
It supports normative social influence
What three variations did Asch investigate that might affect conformity?
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Task difficulty
outline the task difficulty variation
he made the line judging task more difficult by making the standard line and the comparison lines more similar in length.
He found conformity increases. This suggests that social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder.
ISI > situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and assume that they are right, and we are wrong.
outline the group size variation
,he varied the number of confederates from 1-15.
Asch found that with three confederates’ conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8% but the addition of further confederates made little difference.
This suggests that a small minority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but at the other extreme there is no need for a majority of more than three.
outline the unanimity variation
Asch wanted to know if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the naïve participants conformity.
To test this, he introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others > the dissenting confederate reduced conformity
This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous.
The presence of a dissenter enables participants to behave more independently as they act as a role model to resist conformity
AO3: lacks temporal validity
Asch’s study lacks temporal validity
Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s original study with engineering students in the UK. Only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials.
It may be that the engineering students felt more confident about measuring lines than the original sample and therefore were less conformist.
Alternatively, it is more likely that in the 1950’s (when Asch conducted his study) may have been an especially conformist time in America, therefore it made more sense to conform to established social norms, however society has changed and, it may be that people are generally less conformist nowadays.
WEAKNESS because it means that the Asch effect may not be consistent across time and situations.
AO3: lacks external validity
lacks external validity
Participants knew they were in a research study and simply may have gone along with the demands of the situation. The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform.
Additionally, it has been suggested his study did not resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.
WEAKNESS as findings do not generalise to everyday situations. This is especially true where the consequences of conformity might be more important.
AO3: lacks generalisability
Asch’s study lacks generalisability
the sample size was 123 American males
This is a limitation because Asch has not taken gender and culture into account, his findings may be culturally and gender biased and may not represent the entire population.
E: Neto (1995) found that females were in fact more conformist than males, this may be due to females being more concerned about social relationships than males. Furthermore cross-cultural research has also indicated differences in conformity levels.
WEAKNESS as it suggests there may be differences in terms of conformity between males and females, so Asch’s study cannot explain conformity in females as it is an example of beta bias
AO3: ethical issues
The participants were deceived about the true aim of the study and were unaware of the presence of confederates. As a result the participants could not give full informed consent to participate in the study.
Additionally, they may have felt embarrassed on discovering that they conformed in a situation where the answer was obvious.
However, it can be suggested the benefits outweigh the cost. The study was groundbreaking for its time, it help build a scientific understanding to why ordinary people conform within certain situations
