ASCH CONFORMITY RESEARCH

Question 1

ASCH AIM

Answer 1

• wanted to find if whether people conformed under group pressure with a simple visual perception task (normative social influence)

Question 2

ASCH PROCEDURE

Answer 2

123 male, american students univeristy used
deception was used to elicit conformity, paticapants were unaware of the experiment aims
6-8 confederates
18 trails (12 critical trails)

Question 3

ASCH FINDINGS

Answer 3

• 75% conformed atleast once
• 12 critical trails (36.8%) conformed when task was unambigious (wrong answer)
• 6+ critical trails (50) conformed
• 25% never conformed

Question 4

UNAMITY

Answer 4

• refers to extent in which all memebers of the group will agree
• gave particapants a non-conforming ally, the presense of the disstenter meant that conformity dropped from 75% to 25%

Question 5

GROUP SIZE

Answer 5

• WHEN IT WAS A SMALL GROUP & 1 OR 2 CONFEDERATES GIVING THE WRONG ANSWERS CONFORMITY RATES LOW,
• UNDER PRESSURE FROM 3 CONFEDERATES CONFORMITY INCREASED TO 32%
• BEYOND 7 CONFEDERATES CONFORMITY RATES BEGAN TO DECREASE SLIGHTLY

Question 6

TASK DIFFICULTY

Answer 6

• IF TASK DIFFICULTY INCREASES MORE LIKELY TO CONFORM AS LESS CONFIDENT WITH ANSWERS,
• MORE LIKELY TO LOOK AT OTHERS FOR GUIDENCE ON HOW TO BEHAVE
• ASCH TESTED BY MAKING THE LANGUAGE & TEST MORE AMBIGUOUS, WHEN STANDARD LINE & COMPARISOMN LINE MORE SIMILAR

Question 7

GENERALIBILTY BIASED SAMPLE

Answer 7

• PERRIN AND SPENCER ARGUED THAT IT WAS CHILD OF ITS TIME STUDY ON UNI STUDENTS (ENGINEERS, CHEMISTS & MATHEMATICIANS) FOUND ONE STUDENT CONFORMED OUT OF ALL THE 396 TRAILS, CULTURAL CHANGES OVER 30 YEARS HAS LED TO REDUCTION IN TENDENCY OF STUDENTS TO CONFORM

Question 8

raises ethical issues

Answer 8

• Asch reserach increased our knowledge of why people conform, which may avoid mindless destructive conformity
• but when pp are decieved they cannot give informed consent to take part and may have an negative experience
• therefore we might argue that the reserach was justified because there are a wide range of potential applications and the sress caused was minimal

Question 9

LUCAS ET AL SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Answer 9

• lucas et al asked pp to solve “easy” and “hard” maths problems. pp were given answers that (falsely) claimed to be from the other students
• the pp conformed more often (agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder
• this shows asch was correct that task difficulty is one variable affecting conformity.

Question 10

LIMITED APPLICATION

Answer 10

• only american males tested by asch NERO suggests that women may be more confromists possibly because they are more concerened anout social relationships (and being accepted)
• also the US is an individualistic culture and studies in collectivists cultures e.g china have found higher conformity rates (bond and smith )
• this suggests asch findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from other cultures

Question 11

PERRIN AND SPENCER COUNTERARGUMENT

Answer 11

• however perrin and spencer used a very different sample to asch (mathmaticians, chemist and engineers) therefore it could be said that lower levels of conformity were due to pp expertise in solving tasks.