WJEC Psychology Psy 2 Core Studies

1. WJEC Psychology Psy 2Core Studies Asch S.E (1955) Opinions and Social Pressure

2. Aims • Asch believed that conformity helps people make sense of other people’s actions and this gives them an idea of how to behave in situations where they are unsure of the correct response. • Asch wanted to find out what would happen when people were with a majority of other people who were obviously wrong in their judgement.

3. Method • A laboratory experiment using a repeated measures design.

4. Participants • 123 male college students were selected on a voluntary basis from four American universities. • Each was paid $3 to participate in a study that involved a visual judgement task.

5. Procedures • They were tested in groups of 7 – 9. • Only one participant in each group was a real participant (the naïve participant). • The others were confederates of Asch. • Each group was shown 2 pieces of card. One had a "standard" line on it; the other had 3 lines of varying length. • Each member of the group had to state aloud, in turn, which line they thought was the same length as the standard line.

6. Procedures

7. Procedures • One of the three lines were of the same length e.g. 2; the other two were obviously different. • The difference of the lines ranged from three quarters of an inch to an inch and three quarters.

8. Procedures • The answers were given in the order in which they were seated in the room, and on the first round every person chose the same line which was the matching line. • Then anther set of cards was shown, and again the group was unanimous. • On the third trial, and several later ones, the confederates unanimously gave the wrong answer. • In all there were 18 trials, twelve of them were "critical" in that the confederates deliberately gave wrong answers.

9. Procedures • Several conditions were tested. • There was a control condition in which the confederates always gave the correct answer. • This was to make sure that any mistakes made by the naïve participants in the experimental condition were due to conformity effects and not task difficulty.

10. Findings • In the control condition, where confederates gave the correct line each time, the naïve participants answered correctly 98% of the time. • In the experimental condition, where the confederates gave the wrong answers the naïve participants were only correct in 63.2%

11. Findings • Participants conformed to the incorrect answer on 36.8% of critical trials. • 24% of participants never conformed and gave their own answer. • 5% of participants conformed on all trials all of the time. • 75% of the participants conformed at least once on critical trials.

12. Findings • Participants were interviewed afterwards and asked why they conformed: • Distortion of perception – some participants believed the confederates were right. • Some participants wanted to please the researcher, and not "spoil" the results. • Many of the participants thought they had a deficiency in themselves (e.g. poor eyesight), which they wanted to hide to avoid being laughed at.

13. Conclusions • Some people will conform to group norms even when the answer is clearly wrong. • This shows that conformity is a powerful influence in our behaviour. • Asch (1955) said ‘That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern’.

14. Conclusions • However it is important to note that the participants remained independent on two thirds of trials. • Participants who did not follow the lead of the confederates held on to their own beliefs.

15. Evaluation • As this was a laboratory experiment it was conducted in controlled conditions which is a strength because it allowed Asch to measure conformity. • However, because it was a lab experiment it lacked ecological validity – it is not often in everyday life that people are asked to judge the length of a line against three other lines.

16. Evaluation • The sample size of 123 participants was good and the fact that they were all similar in demographic details (age, sex, etc.) means that they were with their peers and people are more likely to conform with peers in real life. • Because the participants were all American males it may not be generalised to other groups such as females or people in other cultures.

17. Evaluation • There are ethical issues with this research as the participants were not able to give their fully informed consent as it would have been impossible to carry out the study if the participants had known the true nature of the experiment. • The participants were subjected to a stressful situation and experienced temporary discomfort but they did not suffer lasting harm.