conformity: asch's research

Question 1

Asch 1951 procedure

Answer 1

• 123 participants American male students, each was tested individually with a group of between six and eight confederates
• on each trial participants had to identify the length of a standard line
• on the first few trials confederates gave correct answers but then all selected the same wrong answers. each participant completed 18 trials. on 12 critical trials confederates gave the wrong answer.

Question 2

Asch 1951 findings

Answer 2

• naive participants gave wrong answers 36.8% of the time.
• 25% of participants never conformed, 75% did at least once.
• participants said they conformed to avoid rejection, but privately trusted their own opinions.

Question 3

Asch 1955 variables - procedure

Answer 3

Asch repeated his first procedure looking at three different variables independently.

• group size, number of confederates between 1-15
• rebel, a confederate who didn’t give the wrong answer
• task difficulty, Asch made the task harder in itself.

Question 4

Asch group size results

Answer 4

with two confederates, conformity to the wrong answer was 13.6%, with three it rose to 31.8%. adding any more made little difference

Question 5

Asch rebel results

Answer 5

the presence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity whether they gave right or wrong answer. average 25% wrong answers.

Question 6

Asch task difficulty

Answer 6

conformity increased when the task was more difficult .

Question 7

Limitations of Asch’s study

Answer 7

Perrin and Spencer repeated the study and found one conforming response in 396 trials.
Study has demand characteristics, task was artificial.
Only men were tested, only apply to certain groups.

Question 8

Ethical issue?

Answer 8

deception