Aschs research

Research

Devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in situations where the answer is certain

Procedure

123 american males were tested each one in a group with other apparent participants

Each participant saw two cards on each trial

The standard line is line x and the lines a b and c are the three comparison lines

One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length and the other two are different

Participant had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line

Physical arrangement

Participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8

One was a genuine participant always seated either last or next to last in the group

Others were all confederates

Findings were on average the participants agreed with he confederate 36.8 percent of the time

25 percent never conformed

Variable investigated - Group size

Wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group

Varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15 so total group size was from 2 to 16

Found a curvilinear relationship - conformity increased with group size but only up to a point

With three confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8 percent

With more confederates conformity rate levelled off

Suggests that people are very sensitive to the view of others because just one or two confederates was enough to change opinion

Variables investigated- Unanimity

Wondered if a lack of unanimity would affect the naive participants conformity

Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates

Genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of dissenter

Rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous

Presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participants to behave more independently

Suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous

Variables investigated- task difficulty

Wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity

Increased the difficulty of the line judging task by making the standard line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length - became harder for genuine participants to see the difference between the lines

Found that conformity increased

May be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder - unclear to the participants what the right answer is

Natural in these situations to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and you are wrong - informational social influence