Asch 1951- line judgement task

the method, results and evaluation of Asch's 1951 line judgement study

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  • Created by: tiaayana
  • Created on: 24-05-20 15:45
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  • Asch, 1951
    • aim of the study:
      • looking at normative social influence; would people conform if the answer was unambiguous?
    • method:
      • a group of 5-7 participants with one naive subject (a male, American student) and the rest were confederates
        • participants were presented a standard line and three comparison lines
          • they were then asked which line matched the standard line length the most, with all the confederates giving the same wrong answer on 12/18 trials
            • after hearing the confederates' wrong answer, the naive subject then had to answer aloud
    • results:
      • real participants conformed on 32% of of the critical trials (where confederates gave the wrong answers)
        • and 75% of participants conformed to the group's pressure on at least one trial
    • variations:
      • group size
        • the bigger the majority, the more people conformed, but only up to a certian point
          • with one confederate in the group, conformity was 3%, with two others it was 13% and with three or more it was 32%
            • conformity didn't increase much after 4/5- this is considered the optimal group size
              • Brown and Byrne, 1997, suggests that people may suspect collusion if the majority rises above three or four
      • unanimity
        • a person is more likely to conform when all members of the group give the same answer
          • Asch, 1951, found that the presence of just one dissenter could reduce conformity by 80%
            • this was irrelevant of whether it was the correct answer or the other incorrect answer
      • task difficulty
        • when the answer was more ambiguous, conformity increased
          • when we are uncertain, we look to others for confirmation- informational social influence
      • answer in private
        • when the nature of the response was private, conformity decreased to 12%
          • this is due to decreased group pressure and no fear of rejection from the group; normative social influence is less powerful
    • evaluation:
      • laboratory setting
        • variables were strictly controlled
        • easily repeatable
        • influence of extraneous variables were minimised
      • artificial situation
        • low ecological validity
          • conforming had no consequences
        • deception
          • participants weren't aware of confederates
          • they were told it was a study of line perception- unable to give informed consent
          • participants may have felt embarrassed when the true nature of the study was revealed which could've put them through some form of psychological harm
            • however, Asch did debrief at the end
      • Androcentric sample
        • participants were only men, women conform differently (Larsen et al., 1979) so results can't be generalised
          • lacks population validity
      • familiarity of the group
        • participants didn't know each other
          • Sogon, 1984, found conformity was higher when the majority was friends of the participants
      • temporal validity
        • the social climate has changed and Larsen, 197, found a lower conformity rate when he replicated Asch's study
      • cultural bias
        • All participants were male
          • Smith & Bond, 1996, did a meta-analysis of repeats of Asch's study and found cultural differences between and within cultures
    • related studies:
      • Asch, 1951- participants who were more confident in their answer didn't conform
        • Perrin & Spencer, 1980, carried out Asch's experiment on engineering students and conformity rates weren't as high
          • may be because engineering students were more confident in their decision-making abilities, or they may be more familiar with measurements than the general population
      • Rosander, 2011- used social media to investigate task difficulty in conformity
        • logic and general knowledge questions were answered but participants could see online confederates had given answers questions (half were wrong)
          • participants conformed to wrong answers and conformity increased with more difficult questions
            • this study demonstrates Asch's research is still relevant and the desire to conform still occurs even when not face to face

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