asch conformity

what was asch studying

how the lone participant would react to confederates going aagainst what they think

who did asch conduct the study on

123 undergraduate males

what was asch’s procedure

• all members in group were confederates apart from 1

• were given a standard line

• p’s were asked to say which on comparison lines they thought matched the standard one at a time

• real p always answered second to last

• on 12 of 18 trials, confeds were asked to say incorrect answer

• in og study, solution was fairly obvious

• asch wanted to see if p’s would stick to their answer or would go along with group

what were asch’s findings

• of the 12 critical trials, conformity was 36.8% (p’s answered incorrectly on 1/3 of trials)

• ¼ never conformed

• ½ conformed on 6 or more trials

• 1/20 conformed in all 12

• he did a control with no confeds and found a 1% mistake rate

• interviews after showed p’s had complied (had no internal change in belief but changed their public behaviour)

what were the 3 variables that asch changed

1. group size

2. unanimity of majority

3. difficulty of task

how did group size affect conformity

• changed from 1 to 13

• in the 1 other person, p was rarely swayed by opinion

• having 2 confeds meant conformity increased to 13.6% of time

• 3 people conformity increased to 31.8%

• after 3 people, conformity didn’t increase much more

how did unanimity of majority affect conformity

• added in another person who disagreed with majority and agreed with p

• conformity dropped from 33% to 5.5%

• tried with who disagreed with majority and with p

• conformity dropped to 9%

• asch concluded it was breaking the groups unanimous position that most reduced conformity

how did difficulty of task affect conformity

• made difference between line lengths much smaller

• levels of conformity increased

• asch believed this was due to informational social influence- individuals were unsure of answer so looked to group so they could be correct

• in og, asch thinks conformity was driven by normative social influence

what were the two ethical issues relating to asch

• he deceived p’s by telling them study was about perception rather than conformity- problem as p’s couldn’t give proper informed consent

• another issue was asch did not account for protection of harm. psychological implications meant p’s learnt this about themselves they didn’t want to. eg they will go along with conformity = embarrassment

EVALUATION : research support from wijenayake

• gave p’s an online quiz

• then showed p’s made up results from fellow responders

• gave p’s chance to change their answers

• 78% conformed to wrong answer at least once- similar to asch 75%

• this confirms asch’s og findings and suggests they are still valid in modern society

EVALUATION: counter point for the asch support

• study showed that conformity is more complex.

• p’s that scored highly for anxiety and unstable mood conformed more

• shows that individual differences as well as situational variable affect conformity

EVALUATION: asch has poor population validity

• all asch participants were undergrad men

• neto et al suggests that women may be more conformist because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted

• this suggests asch’s findings are not generalisable to whole population as different groups are not well represented

EVALUATION: poor temporal validity

• asch study took place in a particular period of US history when conformity was important. USA was in a strong anti communist period when people were scared to go against conformity and so more likely to conform

• Perrin and Spencer tried to recreate asch study in uk in 1980 but only 1 out of 396 responses were conformed

• It lacks some generalisability due to the attitudes in society having progressed since then.  Therefore we cannot assume that people in our modern society will respond the same way they did in Asch's study.