Variables affecting conformity Flashcards
What did Asch want to investigate?
Whether people would conform to the majoirty in situations where the answer was obvious
How many participants where in each group of Asch’ study
5-7 participants
What was each group presented with?
A standard line and three comparison lines
What did participants have to do?
Say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line length
How many REAL participants were in each groups?
1 the remaining number were all confederates
What were the confederates told to do?
Give incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails
What are the issues with validity in this study?
Study lacks ecological validity as it was based on people’s perception of lines, this does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity
What were the issues with sampling in this study?
The study was only carried out on men thus the sample was genderbuas and therefore the results cannot be applied to females. Therefore lacking population validity
What were the ethical issues regarding this study?
Deception as participants were told the stud was about perception of lines. As a result could not give informed consent.
Furthermore, participants may feel embarrassed when the true nature of the study was revealed. Potentially putting them through some psychological harm
What did Asch investigate in his second study?
Investigate which situational factors
What did Asch find when studying group size?
The bigger the majority group (number of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point
What happened when just one person was in the group?
Group conformity was 3%
What happened when two was added ?
Increaseed to 13%
What happened when three was added?
32% (1/3)
What happened to conformity when group size was 4/5?
Conformity did not increase
