Asch's study
- Created by: XD
- Created on: 11-09-18 22:47
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- Method:
- "naive" participants told they were doing a vision test
- 123 Male American Students
- Lab experiment
- Asch's study
- Results
- 25% of participants did not conform at all, always answering correctly.
- Over the 12 'critical trials', 75% of the participants conformed at least once.
- In the control group, less than 1% gave the incorrect answer.
- About 32% of the participants conformed and went along with the clearly incorrect answers.
- Conclusion
- Participants said that they conformed due to fear of being ridiculed by the other 'participents'
- Some participants confirmed because they wanted to fit in with the group.
- Other participants conformed because they thought the group knew better than themselves.
- Evaluation
- Artificial task. Not everyday task to compare lines
- Low ecological validity. Cannot be generalised to real life situations of conformity
- Another study that was the same as Asch's, involved 396 trials in which only one person conformed.
- Biased sample-All the participants were male students around the same age.
- Lacks population validity. Results cannot be generalised to females or older people.
- Ethical issues. Participants were lied to about the true aims of the experiment, however deception was necessary to produce valid results
- Some participants may have eye problems which would've affected their answer.
- Cultural bias and gender bias.
- Artificial task. Not everyday task to compare lines
- Results
- "Confederates" who knew the true aim of the experiment gathered before the task to agree on what their answers would be.
- Participants had to state out-loud which comparison line was the same as the standard line.
- there were 18 trials in total-18 sets of cards. Confederates gave the incorrect answer on 12 trials, known as (critical trials)
- Participants always sat near the end of the line so they could hear all the confederates' answers before giving their own
- This put pressure on them and made them more likely to conform.
- The "naive" participant thought that the confederates were also real participants too.
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