Asch's Study into Conformity 2

Asch Aim

Investigate the effects of the majority opinion on an individuals judgment even if the answer is unambigious

Asch Method and Sample

Lab experiment + 123 Male American Students

Asch Procedure

Pps in groups of 6-8 confederates

Shown 2 white large cards - one card with standard line ‘x’ and the other card had the comparison lines ‘a,b,c’. One of comparison line was same length as standard line with the other 2 lines being substancially different.

On 12/18 critical trials the confederates gave the same wrong answer.

Asch Findings

Avg. real pps gv a wrong answer 36.8% of the time when the confederate was present.

Post experiment interview found majority of pps confromed publicly during experiment but not privately as they wanted to avoid ridicule.

Asch Conclusion

This supports NSI as pps conformed publicly but not privately in order be accepted by the group.

3 Variables affecting conformity

Task Difficulty

Unanimity

Group Size

Unanimity AO1

Complete agreement from a group on an answer or viewpoint.

When confederates all gave same wrong answer conformity = 37%

Variation when 1 confederate gv right answer conformity = 5.5%

When 1 confederate gv diff. answer from rest but not right conformity = 9%

Ash concluded when a dissenter breaks the groups unanimous position conformity decreases.

Group SIze AO1

1 real pps + 1 confederate conformity = 3%

1 real pps + 2 confederates conformity = 13%

1 real pps + 3 confederates conformity = 39%

However conformity plateaued after this

Group size affects conformity as when group size increases so does the rate of conformity but only till a certain point.

Task Difficulty AO1

Conformity increases when task difficulty increases.

Variation Asch made stimulus line more similar in length with comparison lines which made it the answer less obvious which made the task more difficult. When task was more difficult conformity rates increased.

ISI plays greater role when T.D increases as in unclear situations we are more likely to look for guidance and since the right answer is less obvious we loose confidence.

Research to Support Asch into variables affecting conformity

Lucas et al - gv pps ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ math problems and 3 ‘students’ who werent real pps gv their answer before the real pps.

More pps conformed to the wrong answer when problem as difficult rather than easy

Supports - shows when T.D increases so do the rates of conformity

D-Conformity is more complex than Asch suggested - confidence in Math could hv also affected.

Weakness of Asch research

Gender Bias - only male pps - difficult to generalise finidings to women - that time women cared more about their social realtionships.

May have been more likely to conform than men

Lowers the external validity

Weakness of Asch research

Culture bias - only American pps - induvidualistic culture - a collectivist culture such as Chinese would have been more focused on good of the group and therefore more likely to conform + to be liked by the group (care more about it)

Lowers the external validity

Weakness of Asch research

Low ecological validity - artificial env.

Difficult to generalise findings to real life env. - might conform more or less when there is a consequence to their action.

Lowers the external validity.