Asch (1951)

Type of experiment?
Aim?
Method?
Variations?
Results?
Conclusion?
Evaluation?
To investigate whether people would conform to the judgements of others in situations where such judgements were clearly wrong.
Male students were asked to take part in a study of visual discrimination. They were tested in groups of nine. In each group there was only one genuine 'naïve' participant. All the other participants were confederates (or stooges). The participants were seated in a semi circle. Their task was to decide which one of the three comparison lines shown to them was the same length as the standard line. they had to give their judgement aloud in the order in which they were seated, with the naïve participant answering second to last. There were eighteen trials. In six trials the stooges gave the correct answer but on the other twelve they gave the same wrong answer. There was a control group where confederates gave correct answers.
Size of the majority?
Unanimity?
Task difficulty?
Anonymity?
Self esteem?
Asch ran groups in which the size of the majority was changed from one to sixteen. One person (the stooge) ha not real effect on conformity. Two stooges in the majority produced 13% errors. Three stooges produced 33% errors. The addition of further stooges does not lead to further increases in conformity.
Asch wondered if the unanimity of the groups made the naive participant feel isolated, increasing the tendency to conform. Asch broke the unanimity and gave the participant a 'supporter', that is a stooge who answered before the participant and who gave a different answer to that of the group. The results showed that a break in unanimity, even when the answer is wrong, reduced conformity to around 5.5%.
Allen and Levine (1971) arrange for the supporter to appear as if they had extremely poor vision. Even in such situations conformity was reduced though not quite as much as when the supporter appears convincing.
The more difficult the task, the heater the conformity. Linked to this is the belief tin one's competence. Research has found that those who perceive themselves as competent in tasks conform less that others. Perrin and Spencer (1981) replicated Asch's using British students who were studying engineering, maths and chemistry (they wanted to avoid students who might have been familiar with Asch's study). These students remained independent, reporting correct answers even though they faced unanimous majority. In several hundred trials only one error was made. One possible explanation is that these students considered themselves competent. Engineering students in particular need to be precise when using lines.
When the incorrect major called out their judgement but the single naïve participant wrote his down privately, conformity dropped to just over 12%. This suggests that we are still influenced by others even when asked for our private views. An example of this is voting behaviour. Even though we can vote in private , our views may still be influenced by the media and our friends before reaching a decision. Campaigners are aware of this, which is why they use facts selectively to influence peoples vote.
Asch (1956) suggested that people with low self esteem conform more than people with high self esteem. This is possibly linked to a strong need for social approval.
Asch measures the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view: approximately one third (33%) of participants conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. He found that 75% of all participants conformed at least once. whereas in the control group less than 1% gave the wrong answer.
Asch demonstrated that people will conform to the majority view even when that answer is obviously incorrect. It showed that groups exert pressure on an individual in some way to make them conform to majority view.
Ach asked participants following the experiment how they had felt in that group. All said they felt uncomfortable and doubtful of their own judgements.
Strengths?
Weaknesses?

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Psychology Revision Note on Conformity Studies - created from Mind Map, created by maya_briglia on 11/03/2014.