AO1

Created by

Lois Astley

Cards (7)

Asch’s baseline procedure:
123 American men tested, each one in a group with other pps
Each pps saw two large white cards on each trial, the standard line was on line X and lines A, B and C were on the other card and were the comparison lines, one of them was always the same length a X
Each trial, the pps had to say out loud which one of the comparison lines were the same length as line X
Physical arrangement of Asch’s baseline study:
Pps tested in groups of 6-8
Only one was a genuine pps and the rest were confederates
Genuine pps seated as the last or second last in the group
Asch’s baseline study findings:
Genuine pps agreed with confederates incorrect answers 36.8% of the time
25% of pps never gave a wrong answer so therefore never conformed
What were the variables investigated by Asch?
Group size, unanimity, task difficulty
Group size:
Wanted to know if the size of the group would be more important than agreement of the group
To test he varied number of confederates from 1 to 15
Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point
With 3 confederates, conformity to wrong answer rose to 31.8% but presence of more confederates made little difference
One or two confederates was enough to sway opinions
Unanimity:
Wondered if presence of non conforming person would affect the naive pps conformity
Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others
Genuine pps conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
Presence of dissenter appeared to free the naive pps to behave more independently
Non conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in majority’s unanimous view
Task difficulty:
Wanted to know if making the tasks harder would affect degree of conformity
Increased difficulty of line judging task so harder for genuine pps
Found that conformity increased
May be situation that becomes more ambiguous when tasks become harder as the right answer is unclear and it is natural to look to others for guidance and assume they are right