Asch

• Asch (1951)

  Aim- To asses the extent to which people will conform to the opinion of others
• Baseline procedure


  1. 125 male ppts, each in a group with other confederates
  2. Shown a card that had three lines on it
  3. Shown another card with a line that clearly matched one of the others
  4. The ppts had to say outloud what line X matched
• Baseline findings


  1. Ppts agreed with confederates wrong answers 36.5% of the time
  2. Only 25% never conformed
• VARIABLES - Group size aim


  To find out is a larger group size would be more important to agreement
• VARIABLES - Group size procedure


  1. Varied confederates from 1 - 15
• VARIABLES - Group size findings 


  • Found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
  • Conformity rate increased with group size to a point
  • 3 confederates - 31.8%
  • Any more leveled off rates
• VARIABLES - unanimity aim


  To find out if the presence of a non conforming person affected ppts answer
• VARIABLES - Unanimity procedure 


  1. Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates
• VARIABLES - Unanimity findings


  • Influence of the majority depends on it being unanimous
• VARIABLES - Task difficulty aim

  To find out if making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity
• VARIABLES - task difficulty findings

  • conformity increased when it becomes harder
• EVALUATION - Weakness - Real world application


  • Ppts knew they were in a research study so may have displayed demand characteristics
  • Did not display groups in real life
• EVALUATION- Weakness - Limited application


  • Ppts were all American men
  • American is an individualist culture
  • study done in collectivist culture china shows higher conformity rates
• EVALUATION - Strength - Research support 


  • Similar study done with maths problems
  • ppts conformed more when questions became harder

  COUNTERPOINT

  • found conformity more complex than asch suggested
  • Can be down to person and confidence
• EVALUATION - Weakness - Ethical issues

  Ppts were deceived