Asch's (1951)

• What are the aims of the experiment?

  To see if participants are influenced to majority.
• What are the procedures of the experiment?


  7 male pps looked at two cards with lines on them and pps were asked to point out the matching lines. All pps exept one were actors who gave the wrong answers 12/18 of the times. The genuine pps answerd 2nd to last to see if they conformed.
• What were the findings of the expeirment?


  PPS conformed to incorrect answers 36.8% of the time.

  74% conformed atleast once.

  26% never conformed.
• What were the conclusions?

  People feel pressure to conform when majority is unanimous. During debrief, some said they conformed to be liked and others thought there eyes were decieveing them (the needed to be right).
• Why use variables affecting conformity?


  Asch wanted to know what other factors effected conformity levels, so he carried out variations of the original procedure.
• What were the variables affecting conformity?


  Group size, unanimity and task difficulty.
• Explain the group size variable


  Is the size of the group more important than agreement? Size of majority rose considerably with decreasing group size. 3 against 1 was the perfect number.
• Explain the unanimity variable?


  Does having someone who goes against majority affect conformity? Influence of majority depends on the group being unamimous.
• Explain task difficulty as a variable.


  Would making the task more difficult affect conformity? When the lines were made similar lengths, conformity increased.
• Explain Ecological validity of the experiment


  The extent to which the results form the study can be generalised to the real world. It lack validity because the task is not relavent to day to day life. It is not reflective of real conformity.
• Explain the population validity of the experiment


  The extent to which the sample of participants is representitive of people in the real world. Asch only used young, white, male students. So his sample lacked population validity and cannot be generalised to anyone else.
• Explain the temporal validity of the experiment


  The extent to which a study is still relevent in todays time. Asch carried out his study in 1950 america where McCarthyism was an issue. People did not want to be seen as rebellious so this could have hugely affected to results.
• Explain Perrin and Spencers experiment (1980)


  They repeated Asch's experiment in 1980 Britain and found only one conforming participant out of 396. This supports the ideas that Asch's study lacks temporal validity.
• Explain Smiths and Bonds Experiment.


  They carried out a meta-analysis on replications of Asch's studies. They found that culture hugely effects conformity.

  Individualistic cultures (Britain and USA) were less likely ot conform.

  Collectivist cultures (Japan and China) are more likely to conform.

  Supports the idea that Asch's idea lacks validity