AO1 asch

• Asch's experiment investigated the extent to which people conform, even when those around them are clearly wrong.
• Asch's Method

  • 123 male participants who were told they were taking part in a visual perception task (deceptive)
  • placed in groups of 7-9 with only one real participant, the rest confederate with pre-prepared incorrect answers.
  • each group performed 18 trials in which they were asked to identify a comparative line from 4 sample lines, when there was one clear answer
• Asch's Findings

  • Results varied considerably which was concluded to be due to individual differences.
  • Overall, participants conformed about 37% of the time.
  • 74% of participants conformed at least once.
  • 2.5% remained completely independent
• Asch concluded that people conform for 2 reasons; normative and informational social influence.
• Asch analysed a variety of variables to see how they would effect conformity, these include group size, task difficulty and unanimity.
• Task Difficulty: Asch's Variables

  In one variation, Asch made the answer less obvious in which the rate of conformity increased, showing informational social influence.
• Unanimity: Asch's Variables

  In one variation, one confederate gave the correct answer, opposed to the pre-prepared incorrect answer which the other participants gave. Conformity decreased by 5%, showing that if you break group unanimity, conformity will drop.
• Group Size: Asch's Variables

  In multiple variations, the number of confederates changed to determine how the size of the majority affected conformity. When there was 1 confederate, conformity decreased to 3%. When there were 2 confederates, conformity decreased to 12.8%. When there were 3 confederates, conformity decreased to 35%, which remained the same until 7 confederates.