123 men were tested each one were in a group with other particpents
each participant saw two large cards on each trial
the line X on the lefthand card is the standard line
a.b.c are the comparison lines
one of the comparison lines is always clearly the same as line X, the other two are obviously different
on each trial each participant had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same as length X
what does GUT stand for
group size
unanimity
task difficulty
what percentage of participants agreed with the confederates incorrect answers
36.8
how many participants never gave a wrong answer
25%
explain task difficulty
asche increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison line more similar to each other in length
conformity increased
it is natural to look for other people for guidance if you are unsure
asch made the difference in length of the lines harder to judge by making them closer in length
he found that conformity increases as the situation was more ambiguous
unanimity
Asch added a dissenter who disagreed with the other confederates by sometimes giving the correct answer or sometimes giving another wrong answer
The presence of a dissenter reduced the conformity rate
This allows the participants to behave more independently.
explain the group size
varied number of confederates from 1 to 15
curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
Asch changed the number of confederates and measured the conformity rate
When there were two confederates the conformity rate was 13.6% and when there were three confederates, the conformity rate was 31.8%
When more than three variables were added the conformity rate levelled off.
This suggests that people are sensitive to the opinions of others as a few number of confederates can influence how the participants behave
what number of people do you need to then conform
3
asch's variables
asch investigated conformity by testing to see whether participants would conform to the opinion of others in a situation where the others; answers where wrong
He found that 75% of participants conformed at least once