Asch (1951) Flashcards

(10 cards)

1
Q

Aim

A
  • Asch believed that the main problem with Sherif’s experiment was that there was no correct answer so he questioned how could we be sure that a person conformed when there was no correct answer.
  • He conducted the experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
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2
Q

Procedure:

A
  • Asch placed a naive participant in a group with 8 confederates.
  • 123 male US undergraduates participated in the ‘vision test’
  • The group was asked to match a ‘test line’ to the ‘standard line’ given ad it was obvious
  • They then gave their responses one at a time out loud and the participant was last or second last.
  • The confederates all gave the same wrong answer on 12/18 trials. The 12 trials were called CRITICAL TRIALS
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3
Q

Findings:

A
  • The control group only had an error rate of 0.04%
  • On average 33% conformed
  • Over 12 critical trials, about 75% conformed at least once; 5% conformed on every trial
  • When interviewed later, he discovered that the majority had continued to trust their own judgement over the others but still conformed to avoid disapproval (NSI)
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4
Q

Evaluation: Temporal validity

A
  • Asch’s study lacks temporal validity and could be a child of its time
  • 1950s could be seen as an especially conformist decade due to post war mentality of working together
  • Psychologist conducted the test 1980 on engineering students in the UK and only 1/nearly 400 students conformed.
  • This could be due to the calibre of students
  • But this shows that the results are not consistent across situations or time thus making it unreliable
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5
Q

Evaluation: Ecological validity

A
  • It lacks ecological validity as it lacks mundane realism
  • Conformity usually takes place in a social context with people we know rather than strangers so this is not accurate
  • Also the participants knew they were in a study so could have shown demand characteristics
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6
Q

Evaluation: Population validity

A
  • Participants were all men so the results can’t really be applied to women
  • Research shows that women tend to be more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships
  • It was in America which has very individualistic culture
  • When this was conducted in China the conformity rates were higher as China has a more collectivist culture
  • Therefore Asch’s findings are very limited and lacks population validity
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7
Q

Evaluation: Ethical issues

A
  • It was heavily criticised on ethical grounds
  • Deception was used as real participants were not aware that the rest were confederates
  • This could lead to psychological harm as they were in a stressful situation
  • Asch also debriefed them
  • It was necessary to deceive participants to prevent demand characteristics which would make the study invalid
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8
Q

Variables: Group size

A
  • Very little conformity with 1 or 2 confederates but when it was 3, conformity rose up to 30%
  • Little change to the rate of conformity after this point
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9
Q

Variables: Unanimity

A
  • When 1 confederate agreed with the participant, conformity levels dropped from 33% to 6%
  • If 1 confederate gave a wrong answer that wasn’t the same as majority, conformity dropped to 9%
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10
Q

Variables: Task difficulty

A
  • When the test lines were more similar in length, the correct answer was less obvious
  • The level of conformity increased as ISI was starting to have an impact
  • Because they were more uncertain, they look to others for confirmation
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