Studying conformity: Asch

• How many people were involved in Asch’s study?

  123 male participants
• What is a confederate?

  A member of the study who is a fake participant
• What did Asch do to study conformity?

  • Individual participants were placed in groups of confederates
  • Given comparison lines, A was obviously shorter than the B
  • Had to say which line was shorter
  • All confederates said B was shorter than A
• What did the control group do?

  Was full of participants to see how accurate their judgment is
• What was the overall conformity rate?

  32%
• What was the error rate in the control group?

  0.04%
• What are some negatives about the study?

  • Gender bias, only used men
  • Bogdonoff et al (1961) - Unethical as involved deceit
  • Only 32% conformity rate, not very high
  • Not an every day event, so lacks ecological validity
• What is cognitive dissonance?

  Festinger (1957) - People experience anxiety when presented with two contradictory ideas. We conform to avoid cognitive dissonance
• What did Mori and Arai aim to do?

  Repeat Asch’s study without gender bias, demand characteristics, or confederates giving away the aim of the study
• What did Mori and Arai do?

  Repeated Asch’s study with no confederates, and everyone wearing sunglasses. One person had sunglasses that actually showed the line to be different than everyone else
• What did Mori and Arai find?

  Men did not conform whatsoever, women conformed 36% of the time
• What are some evaluation points for Mori and Arai’s study?

  • Unethical, deceived into thinking the sunglasses prevented glare
  • Lacks ecological validity