Social Influence Studies Flashcards
What study did Solomon Asch carry out?
Line Study
What was the aim of Asch’s study?
To investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to a majority who gave obviously wrong answers.
How big were Asch’s groups, what was the supposed subject of the study, how many volunteers?
123 American male students took part in a study of “visual perception.” They were put into groups of 7-9 around a table.
What did the participants have to do? Involve details on group type, amount of trial etc.
Participants had to decide which comparison line (A-C) was the same as the stimulus line on 18 different trials, 12 of which were critical trials. The critical trials involved confederates giving the same wrong answer which the real participant going last or last but one.
How did Asch test how accurate individual, real participant judgements were?
There was a control group of 36 who were tested individually on 20 trials.
Name the 4 findings of Asch’s line study.
720 trialed control group error rate: 0.04%.
12 Critical trials conformity rate: 32%
% of participants that conformed > 1 time: 75%
% of participants that conformed 12/12: 5%
Name the 3 reasons for conformity in Asch’s study.
Distortion of action: participants complied because they didn’t wish to be ridiculed (NSI)
Distortion of perception: Some participants thought their perception was wrong so they conformed (ISI)
Distortion of judgement: Participants had some doubts of their judgement so they conformed to majority view.
What 2 conclusive facts did Solomon Asch come to, what does it suggest?
The judgment of individuals are affected by majority opinions even when they are obviously wrong
There are large individual differences as to how affected people are by majority influence, this suggests that as people agreed publicly but not privately, they were motivated by NSI and wanted to gain acceptance from the group
What was the aim of Sherif’s study?
He wanted to demonstrate that individuals will conform when put into an ambiguous task/situation.
What process did Sherif use in his study?
In this laboratory experiment, he used the auto kinetic effect which is where a small spot of light is shined on the wall of dark room and will appear to move but is actually just a visual illusion.
What was Sherif’s method involving the auto kinetic effect, include details.
When participants were individually tested, their answers varied considerably.
He then assorted them into groups of 3, two of which had similar answers and with a considerably different answer., each person then had to say aloud how far they thought they line moved.
What did the results of Sherif’s study entail?
Sherif found that over an amount of trials, estimates converged, the individual with the greatly different answer conformed to the other two similar answered participants.
What do Sherif’s results show?
People will always tend to conform and would rather come to a group agreement than make individual judgements.
What was Sherif’s conclusion?
As seen in change of judgement from the previously considerable answer, people will tend to conform to a group majority when put into an ambiguous task as a result of the cognitive process and explanation for this conformity being information social influence. This happens as they believe that their information is lacking and looking to others for superior judgement.
