AO1 Asch

• What was the procedure for Asch’s study?

  Tested conformity by showing participants tow large white cards at a time. On one card was a ‘standard line’ and on the other card there were three ‘comparison lines’. One of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other two were always substantially different (i.e. clearly wrong). The participant was asked which of the three lines matched the standard.
• What was the sample for Asch’s study?

  123 American male undergraduates
• Each naive participant was tested with a group of between 6 and 8 confederates. The naive participant was not aware that the others were confederates
• Altogether, each participant took part in 18 trials and on 12 ‘critical trials’ the confederates gave the wrong answer.
• What were the findings of the experiment?

  The naive participant gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time. 25% of participants did not confirm on any trials (75% conformed at least one)
• When participants were interviewed afterwards, most said they conformed to avoid rejection (normative social influence)
• What were the Asch’s variations?

  1. Group Size
  2. Unanimity
  3. Task difficulty
• How did group size affect conformity?

  Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three.

  
• How did unanimity affect conformity?

  The presence of a dissenting confederate (a confederate who disagreed with others) meant that conformity was reduced by a quarter from the level it was when the majority was unanimous. Then presence of a dissenter enabled the naive participant to behave more independently
• How did task difficult affect conformity?

  Asch made the line-judging task more difficult by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity increased under these conditions.

  This suggests that informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. This is because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and we are wrong