Conformity: Asch's Research (Vocabulary Flashcards)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms from Asch's conformity experiments, including baseline procedure, variables, findings, cross-cultural context, and ethics.

Conformity

Adjusting one’s beliefs, attitudes, or behavior to match group norms or the majority view.

Solomon Asch

Social psychologist who conducted famous line-judgment conformity experiments in the 1950s.

Baseline procedure

Asch’s original setup to measure conformity with one naive participant among a group of confederates, using line-length judgments.

Baseline findings

On average, the genuine participants agreed with confederates 36.8% of the time (1/3) there were individual differences, 25% never conformed

Confederates

Actors in the study who pretend to be participants and provide scripted incorrect answers to influence the naive participant.

Naive participant

The genuine participant who may conform to the majority's incorrect responses.

Standard line (x)

The reference line whose length must be matched.

Comparison lines (a, b, c)

Three lines shown to participants; one matches the standard line, the others are clearly different.

Group size

Number of confederates; conformity rises with size up to a point (curvilinear relationship).

Group size results

With three confederates conformity rose to 31.8% but levelled off

Unanimity

All group members agree; the presence of a dissenter reduces conformity.

Dissenter

A nonconforming individual who disagrees with the majority, enabling greater independence.

Unanimity results

The rate decreased to less than a ¼ of the level it was when the majority was unanimous

Task difficulty

Harder line-judgment tasks (lines more similar in length) increase conformity.

Task difficulty results

Conformity increased as task difficulty increased

Informational social influence

Conformity driven by believing others are correct, especially in ambiguous situations.

Demand characteristics

Cues that participants are in a study and should behave in a certain way, potentially biasing responses.

Generalizability (external validity)

The extent to which findings apply beyond the laboratory setting; concerns about artificial tasks. A limitation of this study.

Collectivist vs. individualist cultures

Cultural orientations; conformity tends to be higher in collectivist cultures than in individualist ones. Asch studied American men (an individualist culture) studies done in collectivist cultures showed conformity to be higher. Asch’s study tells us little about women and other cultures

Bond & Smith (1996)

Meta-analysis showing higher conformity in collectivist cultures across 17 cultures.

Neto (1995)

Research suggesting women may be more conformist due to concerns about social relationships.

Fiske (2014)

Susan Fiske argued Asch’s groups lacked ecological validity and resembled real-world groups poorly.

Lucas et al. (2006)

Study showing greater conformity on harder math problems; high confidence individuals conformed less.

Ethical issues in Asch

Deception of participants (confederates) and potential harm; benefits weighed against ethical costs.

Line-judging task

Perceptual task in which participants judge which line matches the standard line in length.