Asch’s study on conformity – Flashcards
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Widely recognized as one of the pioneers in developing social psychology as an academic discipline. His celebrated study of conformity provided a vivid demonstration of how individuals respond to the social pressures and expectations of others.
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Solomon Asch
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123 male American undergraduates
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Participants in Asch study
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Participant who is unaware of the aims of the study
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Naive participant
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"fake subjects" that look & behave like real subjects in study
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Confederates
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confederates who take part in the study but do not give same answers as other confederates
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Dissenting confederate
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Agreement by everyone in the group on a single course of action
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Unanimity
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The decade in which Asch did his original experiment
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1950s
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12/18
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The number of trials in which confederates gave the wrong answer
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When Asch made his line task more difficult - conformity rose amongst naive ppts as they were unsure of the answer and looked to the majority for information
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Task difficulty
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When there was a dissenting confederate to break the unanimity of the confederates, conformity amongst naive ppts decreased as they felt more confident to go with their own decisions
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Unanimity Variation
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The optimum group size for conformity to take place is a majority of 3 people...
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Group Size
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25%
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Results - which % of ppts never conformed
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75%
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Results - which % of ppts conformed at least once
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Task didn't represent real life situations - lacked ecological validity Cannot generalise findings to everyday situations
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Evaluation - Artificial task and situation
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Ppts may have conformed in Asch's original experiment because it took place in a time where where the consequences of not conforming were more serious - the Asch effect is not consistent across time
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Evaluation - A child of its time
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Ppts were all male and American - not generalisable across genders or cultures
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Evaluation - limited application of findings
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this adjective describes cultures in which the individual is less important than the group - people in these cultures may be more likely to conform
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Collectivist
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culture in which the individual is valued more highly than the group people in these cultures may be less likely to conform
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Individualist
