Asch's conformity Study
- Created by: c.derbyshire24
- Created on: 11-02-21 19:47
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- Asch's conformity study
- Procedure
- Participants: 123 white American males
- Two white cards: one displayed a control line and the other displayed three lines, one the same as the control and two obviously different
- Groups: made up of 1 participant and 6-8 confederates
- Task: participants were asked to identify the line that matched the control line. Confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer
- Variations
- Group size
- conformity increased to 31.8% when the number of confederates was increased to 3, but not much change after that
- Unanimity
- Asch introduced a confederate to disagree with the other confederate,conformity dropped by 1/4
- Task difficulty
- Asch made the standard line more difficult to distinguish from the other lines. Conformity was increased.
- Group size
- Conclusions
- Influence of the majority depends on the group being unanimous
- People conform more/ ISI plays a greater role when task difficulty is increased because people look for more guidance
- 3 dissenters is the optimum level for people to conform
- Results
- Participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time
- 25% of participants didn't conform at all
- Most participants admitted that they conformed because they didn't want to be rejected
- Evaluation
- Contradicting research: Perrin and Spencer. Only 1 group conformed out of 396
- Demand characteristics could have been displayed: participants were aware they were taking part in a trial
- Not representative of the population as whole - can't be generalised due to lack of cultural and gender representatives
- Ethical issues: participants were deceived
- Procedure
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