Variables affecting conformity

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what was the aim of Asch (1956)?
Asch asked 123 male unversity students to take part in a visual discrimination task, his real aim was to assess the behaviour of a lone real PPs in relation to the confederates
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What Proceedure did Asch (1956) use?
4 confederates and one PPs were seated rond a table. the PPs sat asecond to last. They were presented with a "standard" line and asked to find its counterpart out of the "comparison lines". The correct answers were obvious.
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How did Asch use this study to test the PPs conformity to group majority?
on 12 out of the 18 tests the confederates would give the wrong answer. The behavour of the PPs was observed to see wether they would follow the group
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how many of Asch's PPs confromed to the group?
33%
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how many PPs never conformed on any of the 12 critical trials?
25%
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how many PPs conformed to 6 or more of the trials?
50%
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how many PPs conformed on all the critical trials?
5%
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In the control condition how many PPs got the wrong answer
1%
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why was it important for Asch (1956) to run a control condition
to ensure the stimulus lines were unambiguous and not a confounding variable
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what did Asch assrtain from interviews with the PPs after the study?
The majority of PPs continued to trust their own perceptions and judgment, but gave the incorrect answer to avoid disaproval from other group memebers
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What form of conformity did Asch's PPs convey?
Compliance
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What were the three variables Asch found affected conformity in later iterations of the 1956 study?
Group size, unanimity of the majority and the difficulty of the task
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How did using two confederates affect the conformity rate?
It was negligble
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How did using three confederates affect the conformity rate?
it was at 30%
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how did further increaeses in majority size affect conformity?
it didn't. 30% was the natural limit
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What did Campbell and Fairey (1989) suggest about group size?
group size has different effects depending on wether the judgment is ojective or subjective
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how does group size affect conformity when the jugment is subjective?
the bigger the majority the more likly an indivdual is to conform because they are concerned about fitting in
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how does group size affect conformity when the jugment is objective?
the individual is more concerned with being orrect an therefore ignore the majority opinion
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how does an disunity among the confderates affect the rate of conformity?
If the PPs is supported by either another PPs or a confederate, conformity drops to 5.5%
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What happend whe the dissenter gave an answer that was both incorrect and agianst the majority?
Conformity dropped to 9%
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What did Asch conclude from his reaserch into unanimity and its effect on conformity?
It was a major decider in conformity
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how did reducing the difference between the lines (making the task harder) affect conformity?
it increased
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How did Lucas et al (2006) expand on Asch's reaserch?
He suggested that the effect of task difficulty is moderated by self efficacy
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How does Lucas et al (2006) suggest self efficacy effects conformity?
if an individual has a high self efficacy then they are less likley to conform regardeless of task difficulty and visa versa
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E1: in what ways might Asch's conformity reaserch lack historical validity?
The anti-communist McCarthyist culture of 1956 America may have driven up the conformity rate of it's citizens
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E1: what addtional reaserch suggests Asch's results may have been a cultrual anomoly?
Perrin and Spencer (1980) recreated Asch's study and found only one conforming result out of 396 trials
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E1: how else did Perrin and Spencer (1980) suggest that Asch's results lacked historical validity?
They found similar results to Asch (1956) when they used youths on probation as PPs and probation officers as confederates, recreating the nature of Macarthyism in the US
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E2: How did Bond (2005) find problems with effect of group size?
No other reasercher's since Asch have used a majority greater than 9. Most use between 4 and 5. therefore there is a lack of supporting evidnece for Ach's claims of the effect of group size
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E3: What was Asch's original reaction to his results?
He suggested that because 2/3 PPs stuck to their own judgment rather than conform, the study was a demonstration of independent behaviour
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E4: What was a key critisim of Asch's confederates leveled by Mori and Arai (2010)?
they were not convincing, becoming a extreneous variable
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How did Mori and Arai (2010) amend the study to account for this extrenous variable?
they made 3 PPs wear glasses with one filter and 1 wear another. They then assesd the 1 with the differnet filters' behaviour whne presnted, with stumili they saw diffrently from the rest of the group as Asch had done with the pps.
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E5: What did Smith (2006) demonstrate about cross cultural studies of conformity?
Using the Asch's 1956 study, Smith found a global average conformitiy of 31% Whereas in the US and europe the average was 25% compared with 37% in Asia and Africa
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How did Kitayama (1991) help to explain Smith's (2006) results?
Kitayama (1991) suggested that conformityws more common in collectivist countries because it cts as a social glue that binds the socioty together
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What Proceedure did Asch (1956) use?

Back

4 confederates and one PPs were seated rond a table. the PPs sat asecond to last. They were presented with a "standard" line and asked to find its counterpart out of the "comparison lines". The correct answers were obvious.

Card 3

Front

How did Asch use this study to test the PPs conformity to group majority?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

how many of Asch's PPs confromed to the group?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

how many PPs never conformed on any of the 12 critical trials?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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