asch

• outline asch's procedure

  • 123 American male volunteers
  • judged line length in comparison to "standard line"
  • 1 naive participant with 6-8 confederates
  • NP answered second to last
  • 18 trials, 12 were critical where C's gave same wrong answer
• what were asch's findings?

  • 33% conformity overall
  • 5% conformed every time
  • 25% never conformed
  • accuracy was 99% with no confederates

  participants privately trusted own perceptions but publicly changed to avoid disapproval (compliance)
• outline the conclusions of asch's study

  • shows normative social influence
  • asch effect for conformity in unambiguous and ambiguous situations
• evaluation point 1 for asch's study

  lab setting

  • controlled environment
  • lack of extraneous variables
  • increased reliability
• evaluation point 2 for asch's study

  artificial task

  • matching line task
  • doesn't replicate real life tasks
  • lacks application
• evaluation point 3 for asch's study

  unrepresentative sample

  • 123 american male student volunteers
  • behaviour doesn't replicate universally
  • lacks generalisability
• outline the group size variation of asch's study

  • 1 or 2 in majority = little conformity
  • 3 or 4 in majority = 32% conformity
  • increase in majority = no improvement

  at a very high group size, participants became suspicious
• outline unanimity of majority variation of asch's study

  • C gave correct answers = 5% conformity
  • C gave different answer = 9% conformity

  presence of dissenter allowed people to behave independently

  • if we break the unanimity, can follow what we think
• outline task difficulty variation of asch's study

  • made line lengths more similar = increased conformity

  more ambiguous task, look to others for guidance about correct response (informational social influence)
• outline the criticism of asch's study using Perrin & Spencer's study

  • repeated with UK students, 1 participant conformed out of 396 trials
  • challenges findings as replication didn't produce same results
  • lacks temporal validity