Asch

Procedure

• 123 us male p’s in a group of confederates.

• Presented with a test line and 3 comparison lines

• Had to state out loud which line matched up to the test line.

• Groups of 6-8

• All confederates have the wrong answer

• P’s conformed to the confederates 36.8% of the time

• 25% didn’t conform

Asch Variations

Group size

• He had between 1 and 15 confederates and 1 real participant

• Conformity increased with group size but only to a certain point

• With 3 confederates it rose to 31.8%

Unamity

• Asch introduced a confederate that disagreed with the other confederates

• The p conformed less in the presence of a dissenter

Task difficulty

• Conformity increased when the task was difficult

AO3

Artificial stimuli and task- this task doesn’t reflect how people conform in everyday life

Limited application- only included American men

Research support-Lucas et al and maths problems (hard and easy)