social influence Asch's variations Flashcards
why did Asch add variation to his study
Asch was further interested with the conditions that might lead to and increase or decrease in conformity
He investigated these by carrying out some variations of his procedures
what were the different variations to the original procedures
- group size
- unanimity
- task difficulty
why did Asch change the size of the group
he wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group
how did group size effect the level of conformity
Asch found out with three confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
addition to futher confederates made little difference
this suggests that a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but, at the other extreme, there is no need for a majority of more than three
why did Asch added the presence of another non - conforming person
he wanted to know if the presence of another non conforming person would affect the naive participant’s conformity.
To test this, he introduced a confederate who disagreed with others- sometimes the new confederate gave the correct answer and sometimes they gave the wrong answer
how did the presence of the new confederate effect the level of conformity
the presence of another the confederate meant that conformity was reduced by a quarter from the level it was when the majority was unanimous
This is because the presence of the non conforming dissenter enabled the naive participant to act independently
That suggest that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous
how did Ash make the task more difficult
Asch made the line - judging task more difficult by making the stimulus line and the comparison more similar in length
how does the level of difficulty effect the level of conformity
conformity increased under these conditions. This suggests that ISI pays a greater role when the task becomes harder. This is because the 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
