Asch

• Asch procedure


  123 men were tested - each in a group with apparent participants

  Each person saw 2 large cards each trial

  1 card was showing the line X

  Another card was showing lines A,B,C which were the comparison lines

  One line was the same length as X and the other lines were wrong

  Each trial: participants had to say which of the lines was the sae length as X

  They were tested in groups of 6-8

  One was the actual participant and the others were all Asch's confederates who gave the wrong answers each time

  The genuine participant didn't know that the others were confederates
• Asch's findings


  36.8% of the time participants gave the wrong answer

  25% of participants never conformed
• What does GUT stand for

  G - Group size

  U - Unanimity

  T - Task difficulty
• Group size


  There was a varied number of confederates: 1 - 15

  Curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate - conformity increased with group size but only up to a point

  3 confederates: conformity rose to 31.8% - the presence of more confederates made little difference - the rate levelled off

  1 or 2 confederates - enough to sway opinion as people are sensitive to the views of others
• Unanimity


  Confederate introduced who disagreed with the others

  Participant conformed less often with the dissenter (someone who disagrees)

  Influence with the majority depends on it being unanimous
• Task difficulty


  Difficulty of line judging task increased - making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar

  Asch found that conformity increased with task difficulty

  The situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder - it is unclear to participants what the right answer is.

  It is natural in this situation to look for other people for guidance and assume they are right and you are wrong (Informational Social Influence (ISI))
• Limitations


  The task and situation were artificial

  Participants knew they were in a research situation and may have gone along with the demand characteristics

  There were no consequences if people didn't conform so it doesn't resemble groups that we experience in daily life.

  This means that the findings do not generalise the real world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important
• Limitation


  Asch's participants were all American men

  Other research suggests that women are more conformist maybe because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted

  US is an individualist culture

  Asch's findings tell us little about conformity in women and other cultures
• Strength

  One strength of Asch's research is support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty

  For example other studies asked their participants to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths problems

  Participants were given answers from three other students (not actually real). The participants conformed more often (agreed with wrong answers) when the problems were harder.

  This shows that Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity.