Social Influence: Asch's study Flashcards
what was the participants of the study?
123 american male undergraduates.
what was the procedure of the study?
participants were shown 1 standard line and 3 comparison lines. they were asked which of the 3 lines matched the standard line. the naive participant was put with 6-8 confederates. on the first few trials, the confederates gave the right answers then started to make errors. all confederates gave the same wrong answer. 12/18 trials the confederate gave wrong answers.
what were the findings of Asch’s study?
75% conformed at least once. 25% never conformed. the naive participant gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time. when interviewed, they said they conformed to avoid rejection.
how did group size affect conformity?
he found with 3 confederates, conformity to wrong answers rose to 31.8% but any more made little difference. this suggests small minority isn’t sufficient but also no need for more than 3.
how did unanimity affect conformity?
a confederate that disagreed with the others was introduced. the presence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity by 1/4. it enables the participant to behave more independently, suggesting influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous.
how does task difficulty affect conformity?
the stimulus line and comparison lines were made more similar in length. conformity increased suggesting ISI plays a bigger role when the task is harder as the situation is more ambigious.
what does an artificial task do? (A03)
it can lead to demand characteristics. the task of identifying lines is trivial meaning there’s no reason not to conform. also the participants were members of a ‘group’, doesn’t resemble everyday groups. the findings can’t generalised to everyday situations and we interact with people in a more direct way.
how’s there limited application? (A03)
only men were tested. research shows women may be more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships. only americans tested, an individualist culture where the people are more concerned about themselves. research on collectivist cultures showed conformity rates were higher (makes sense as they-re more gorup-oriented). this shows conformity may be higher than Asch found.
what are the ethical issues? (A03)
the naive participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved were also geniune participants like themselves. this ethical issue should be weighed up against the benefits gained from the study.
