Social Influence L4

Question 1

What are the 3 variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch?

Answer 1

1. Group size
2. Unanimity
3. Task difficulty

Question 2

How did Asch investigate group size as a variable affecting conformity?

Answer 2

• He looked at the number of people in a group and whether this had an effect on the conformity rate
• He found that there was very little conformity if there were 1 or 2 confederates in the majority
• If there was a majority of 3 confederates, conformity rates rose to 30%
• After this, further increase in the majority size did not affect conformity rates
• Therefore group size is only important up until a certain point
• Campbell and Fairey (1989) said that group size will have an effect depending on the type of judgement being made
• If the task is ambiguous, then conformity is likely to happen following the majority
• If the task is clear, then conformity is likely to happen to ‘fit in’

Question 3

How did Asch investigate unanimity of the majority as a variable affecting conformity?

Answer 3

• This is when everyone in the group agrees with the same answer, whether it is right or wrong
• If 1 confederate gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped significantly from 33% to 5.5%
• If 1 confederate gave the wrong answer and it was not the same as the majority, then conformity levels dropped to 9%
• This suggests that you only need 1 break in the unanimous decision for conformity rates to drop

Question 4

How did Asch investigate task difficulty as a variable affecting conformity?

Answer 4

• In one variation, Asch made the differences between the line lengths much smaller (so that the ‘correct’ answer was less obvious)
• This caused the level of conformity to increase
• Lucas et al (2006) investigated this further and found that the influence of task difficulty is due to self-efficacy (how competent/confident a person feels in carrying out a task) of the individual
• When exposed to maths problems in an Asch-type-task, high self-efficacy (confident) participants remained more independent than participants of low self-efficacy — even under conditions of high task difficulty
• This shows that situational differences (task difficulty) and personality differences (self efficacy) are both important in determining conformity

Question 5

What are the 4 weaknesses of Asch’s studies?

Answer 5

1. Asch’s study may be a child of it’s time
2. Artificial situation and task
3. Limited application of findings
4. Ethical issues

Question 6

Describe the evaluation point of Asch’s study that ‘Asch’s study may be a child of its time’

Answer 6

• Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s original study on engineering students in the UK
• Only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials (in Asch’s study, 75% of participants conformed at least once)
• This shows that conformity does not always occur, however it could be that engineering students felt more confident about measuring lines than Asch’s original participants
• It is possible that the 1950s (when Asch did his study) was a conformist decade in the US
• Society has changed hugely since the 1950s and it could be that people are less conformist today
• This is a limitation as Asch’s research lacked temporal validity, meaning it was not consistent across situations and wasn’t valid over time

Question 7

Describe the evaluation point of Asch’s study that he used an ‘artificial situation and task’

Answer 7

• The participants most likely knew that they were in a study and may have shown demand characteristics (acting in a certain way to please the experimenter) as a result
• The task of identifying the correct line is a very ‘silly’ and unrealistic task as it is not something that we do every day
• Although the participants were placed into groups, Fiske (2014) argued that Asch’s groups were not reflective of the groups that we are all part of in everyday life
• Therefore we cannot generalise the findings to everyday situations as Asch’s study lacks ecological validity (it doesn’t mirror real life situations)

Question 8

Describe the evaluation point of Asch’s study that it has a ‘limited application of findings’

Answer 8

• All participants in Asch’s study were men, so the results cannot be applied to women
• Bond and Smith (1996) highlighted that the men in Asch’s study were from the US, which is an individualistic culture (where people are more concerned about themselves)
• When Asch’s study was carried out in collectivist cultures (where the social group is more important than the individual), such as China, conformity rates were higher
• Therefore Asch’s findings are very limited as they can only be applied to US males, and not women or other cultures
• Therefore his research lacks population validity

Question 9

Describe the evaluation point of Asch’s study that there are ‘ethical issues’

Answer 9

• One of the main ethical issues was deception as he used confederates in the groups, and the participants were unaware of this
• He also got the confederates to give the wrong answers on 12 out of 18 trials — this deception could have lead to psychological harm for the real participant as they would be confused as to why everyone in the group is giving a clearly wrong answer
• This could lead them to conform because they were stressed and confused, not because they were simply copying the majority