Social Influence, Conformity: Asch's research
- Created by: habzbegum
- Created on: 07-10-19 11:27
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- Conformity: Asch's research (1951, 1955)
- Key Terms
- Group size
- Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates.
- Unanimity
- The extent to which all members of the group agree.
- Task difficulty
- Asch's line judging task gradually became harder.
- Group size
- Procedure
- 123 male Americans were tested individually. Each naive p weren't aware the others were confederates and were asked to compare lines.
- On the first few trials, all the confederates gave the right answers but then gave incorrect answers (same wrong answer).
- Each p took part in 18 trials and on 12 'critical trials' the confederates gave the wrong answer.
- Findings
- The naive p gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
- Overall, only 25% of participants did not conform at all.
- When interviewed, participants said they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI).
- Asch's variations
- Group size
- With three confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%. Adding more made no difference.
- Unanimity
- When there was a dissenter, conformity decreased by a quarter.
- Task difficulty
- Asch made the kine-judging task more difficult.and found that conformity increased.
- Group size
- Evaluation
- Perrin and Spencer (1980)
- Repeated Asch's study but only one student in 396 trials conformed.
- This is a limitation as it may not be consistent over time and therefore not a fundamental feature of human behaviour.
- Repeated Asch's study but only one student in 396 trials conformed.
- Fiske (2014)
- Perrin and Spencer (1980)
- Key Terms
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