Variables affecting conformity social influence Flashcards
Research may be a child of its time
POINT: It is possible that Asch’s findings are unique because the research took place in a particular period of US history when conformity was very important.
EXPLAIN: 1956, the US was in the grip of McCarthyism, a strong anti-Communist
period when people were scared to go against the majority and so were more
likely to conform.A subsequent study, where they used youths on probation as participants and probation officers as the confederates, they found similar levels of conformity to those found by Asch back in 1956.
END: This shows that conformity is more likely if the perceived costs of not conforming are high, which would have been the case during the McCarthy era in the US.
problems with determining group size
POINT: limitation of research in conformity is that studies have used only a limited range of majority sizes.
EXPLAIN: Asch thought majority siz of three was enough for maximum influence. points out that no studies other than Asch have used a majority size greater than nine, and in other studies of conformity
the range of majority sizes used is much narrower, typically
between two and four.
END: we know little about conformity levels
biased sample
POINT: Sampling issues with Asch’s research
EXPLAIN: only tested males, females tend to conform more american (individualist culture),volunteers ( demand characteristics)
collect cultures like china have higher levels of conformity
END: Gender and culture bias lacks pop validity
unconvincing confederates
POINT: Difficult to seem convincing when giving wrong answer undermining the validity of the experiment
EXPLAIN: Mori and Arai (2010) overcame the confederate problem by using a technique
where participants wore glasses with special polarising filters. Three
participants in each group wore identical glasses and a fourth wore a different
set with a different filter. This meant that each participant viewed the same
stimuli but one participant saw them differently, causing them to judge that a
different (to the rest of the group) comparison line matched the standard line.
For female participants (although not male participants), the results closely
match those of the original Asch study.
END: Mori and Arai (2010) overcame the confederate problem by using a technique
where participants wore glasses with special polarising filters. Three
participants in each group wore identical glasses and a fourth wore a different
set with a different filter. This meant that each participant viewed the same
stimuli but one participant saw them differently, causing them to judge that a
different (to the rest of the group) comparison line matched the standard line.
For female participants (although not male participants), the results closely
match those of the original Asch study
END: suggest that the confederates acted convincingly in aschs study increasing validity
