variables affecting conformity

Question 1

what was the aim of Asch’s study

Answer 1

measure the extent that people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the others’ answers were clearly incorrect.

Question 2

what was Asch’s sample

Answer 2

123 male student volunteers

Question 3

what is an issue with Asch’s sample

Answer 3

small sample
ethnocentric - all American
androcentric - all men
volunteers were deceived - they were told it was a visual perception test

Question 4

what was the procedure for Asch’s study

Answer 4

1 naive pp in a group of 7-9
match the standard line with the 3 comparison lines - 2 comparison lines are incorrect
12/18 trials were critical - confederates would say the wrong answer
real pp answered last or next to last
unambiguous study

Question 5

what were the findings

Answer 5

36% of pp conformed
5% conformed on all 12/18 critical trials
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once

Question 6

what were the post-interview findings in Asch’s study

Answer 6

distortion of judgement - not sure on accuracy so conformed to the majority
distortion of perception - didn’t know the answer so actually conformed
distortion of action - avoided ridicule/embarrassment

Question 7

what did the results show in Asch’s study

Answer 7

the judgement of individuals was affected by the majority even when it was obviously wrong

Question 8

factors affecting conformity

Answer 8

group size
unanimity
task difficulty

Question 9

who did a meta-analysis to support Asch’s study on group size

Answer 9

Bond and Smith

Question 10

why did the study show the conformity rate peaks in group size

Answer 10

ar 3 - 4 confedrates

Question 11

what does unanimity do to social influence

Answer 11

conformity rates decline when the majority influence isn’t unanimous

Question 12

how did Asch measure group size

Answer 12

varied the group size of confederates from 1 - 15
found that at 1 confederate conformity was 14% and increased to peak at 32% at 3 confederates
from 3 confederates onwards, conformity did not change - plateaued

Question 13

how did Asch measure unanimity

Answer 13

brought in a dissenting confederate who would say the right answer or say the wrong answer
when the dissenting confederate said the right answer conformity dropped to 5.5%
when the dissenting confederate said the other wrong answer conformity dropped to 9%

Question 14

how did Asch measure task difficulty

Answer 14

Asch made the line-judging task more difficult by making the stimulus line and the comparison line more similar in length.
He found that conformity increased under these conditions.
This suggests that informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder

Question 15

what type of social influence is the dominant force in task difficulty + why

Answer 15

informational
This is because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right, and we are wrong

Question 16

AO3 → a child of its time

Answer 16

Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s original study with engineering students in the Uk → only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials. it may by that the original sample was more conformist
but it is possible that during the 1950 (when Asch did this study) it was an especially conformist time in America, and therefore it made sense to conform to established social norm, but society has changed, and less people are conformist today
→ limitation because it means that the Asch effect is not consistent across situations and may not be consistent across time, and so is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour

Question 17

artificial situation and task

Answer 17

pps knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with the demands of the situation (demand characteristics) → the task of identifiying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform, also although the naive pps were members of a group, it didn’t really resemble groups that we are part of in everyday life.
→ limitation because it means that the findings do not generalise to everyday situations - where the consequences of conformity might be more important and we interact with other people in groups in a much more direct way

Question 18

limited application of findings

Answer 18

only men were tested by Asch, (ended up with a androcentric views/conclusions) other research suggests that women might be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted than men are (Neto 1995). the men in Asch study were from the United states, an individualist culture i.e. where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social groups. this means that Asch’s conclusion are very ethnocentric
similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (such as China) where the social group is more important than the individual have found that conformity rates are higher. this makes sense because such cultures are more orientated to group needs (Bond and Smith 1996)
→ this shows that conformity levels are sometimes higher than Asch found. Asch’s findings may not apply to American men because he didn’t take gender and cultural differences into account

Question 19

ethical issues

Answer 19

the naive pps were deceived because they thought other people involved in the procedure (the confederates) were also genuine pps like themselves.