ASCH CONFORMITY STUDY - created from Mind Map

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Original Study

Variation Studies

Aims

Procedures

Findings

Conclusions

Strengths

Limitations

Investigate whether people would conform

Majority situation

No doubts about correct answer

123 American Male Undergrads

Each PP tested with 6-8 confederates

Each group presented with lines

PPs had to say which line matched standard

Confederates gave right answers at first

Seated last or second to last

1 Standard line

3 Comparison lines

2 lines were clearly wrong

Then started to give same wrong answers

12/18 times confederates gave wrong answers

Naive pps conformed 37% of the time

25% of pps never conformed

75% of the same conformed at least once

Most said they conformed to avoid disapproval

Did report feelings of tension and doubt

NSI

Most people conform some of the time

Distortion of perception

Distortion of Judgement

Distortion of action

Doubted own perception

Most conformers

Knew perception was right but didn't want to be minority

Few conformers

High internal validity

Tight variable control

Cause and effect proved

Lack temporal validity

Lack internal validity

Ethical issues

Gender + Culture bias

More recent experiment found 1/396 conformed

Lack credibility, inapplicable to modern times

PPs knew they were being observed

Trivial task

Demand characteristics

Lack mundane realism

Lack credibility + generalisability

Deception

Stressful + Embarrassing

Debriefing

Necessary

Psychological harm

Against ethical guidelines

Only American males

Not generalisable

For women

For other cultures

In particular collectivist countries such as China

Group size

Unanimity

Task Difficulty

Conclusions

Findings

Procedures

Aims

Increasing majority beyond 3 had no real impact on conformity

Size of majority Is important up to a point

Little conformity when small majority

Majority =1, 3% conformity

Majority =2, 13.6% conformity

Majority =3, 31.8% conformity

Varied confederate numbers

To find out how changing group size affects rates of conformity

Conclusions

Findings

Aims

Procedures

Real PP has support for their belief

Break group unanimous position

A person is more likely to conform when everyone agrees on same answer

Less likely to conform (resist pressure)

Conformity reduced

Even if no support for correct answer

To explore how unanimity of group's incorrect responses affected conformity rates

1 confederate unstructured to give correct answer throughout

1 confederate gave different incorrect answer to rest

Conformity dropped to 5.5%

Conformity dropped to 9%

Findings

Conclusions

Aims

Procedures

When lines more similar, conformity increased

When correct answer obvious, conformity rate dropped

Greater difficulty = greater conformity rates

When situation is more ambiguous/uncertain, more likely to look to others

ISI

Look to others for answer when task is difficult

Look to others for guidance and assurance that we are right

To discover whether altering the difficulty of a task affects conformity rates

Made stimulus line more similar to comparison lines

Created ambiguity

Harder to tell which one matches