Aschs research Flashcards
(18 cards)
How many participants were selected
123 males were selected on a voluntary basis
How many naive participants were there in each group
there was one naive participant
On average participants agreed with wrong answers
36.8%
What percent of participants never conformed
25%
What percent of participants conformed atleast once
75%
When group size increased what occurred
conformity increased
What is a dissenter
someone that is a confederate but doesn’t agree with what they are saying
When the presence of a dissenter was introduced what occurred
the naive participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
Why did conformity drop when a dissenter was introduced
it dropped because the dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently
When a confederate (dissenter) was instructed to give the correct answer what did the rate of conformity drop to
it dropped to 5.5%
When the confederate (dissenter) was instructed to still give wrong answer but different to the majority what did the rate of conformity drop to
it dropped to 9%
When task difficulty increased what occurred
conformity also increased
What was the evaluation of ecological validity of this experiment
it was criticised for low ecological validity and limited sample use and it also raised questions on how transferable Asch’s findings could be as it wasn’t done in a scientific environment and it wasn’t important/ impactful questions
What was the evaluation for population/ cultural validity
it lacks because it was limited to american men, caution should be taken when generalising the findings to a whole population
what is the evaluation for experimental control
Asch’s conformity was a laboratory experiment, which allowed it to have high internal validity and minimal issues as it was repeated many times and had set instructions
what is the evaluation for temporal validity
the study lacks temporal validity because it was done in the 1950’s when people were scared to go against the majority
when was the study was done in England and how many people conformed and how many times
the study was done in the 1980’s and out of over 300 tests one person conformed once however this variable was tested with engineering and maths students who wouldn’t have wanted to be wrong when the answer is so obvious
what is conformity
is the tendency to change what we do, think or say in response to the influence of real or imagined pressure from a majority group
