One weakness of the Asch experiment is that
it lacks ecological validity
. In Asch's experiment, the participants were required to judge lengths of line, which is a very artificial task and everyday examples of conformity (e.g. peer pressure) do not involve such mundane requests.
What was wrong with the Asch conformity experiment?
Another problem is that the
experiment used an artificial task to measure conformity – judging line lengths
. How often are we faced with making a judgment like the one Asch used, where the answer is plain to see?
Which of the following is a weakness in the studies that Asch conducted on conformity?
One weakness of the Asch experiment is that
it lacks ecological validity
. In Asch's experiment, the participants were required to judge lengths of line, which is a very artificial task and everyday examples of conformity (e.g. peer pressure) do not involve such mundane requests.
What did Asch find caused less conformity in his studies?
Asch found that
the presence of a “true partner” (a “real” participant or another actor told to give the correct response to each question)
decreased conformity. In studies that had one actor give correct responses to the questions, only 5% of the participants continued to answer with the majority.
What might be 1 criticism of the Asch study?
One of the major criticisms of Asch's conformity experiments centers
on the reasons why participants choose to conform
. According to some critics, individuals may have actually been motivated to avoid conflict, rather than an actual desire to conform to the rest of the group.
What was Asch's hypothesis?
Asch hypothesized that
when confederates (fake participants) uniformly gave a particular response in a group setting, the lone true participant would feel pressure to conform to the group consensus
.
What was a strength of Asch's study?
Asch's conformity study has many strengths. Firstly, it was
a highly controlled experimental set-up
. There was a control group and a group with other people, meaning that any major difference in results is only going to be due to that one change. Asch had not expected to see such a high degree of conformity.
What did Solomon Asch's famous line experiment demonstrate?
Solomon Asch's experiment on group conformity demonstrated
that people will conform with a group
, even if they feel or know that the group is wrong.
What caused most people to conform in Asch's study?
The experiment concluded that people conform for two main reasons:
they want to fit in with the group (normative influence)
and because they believe the group is more informed than they are (informational influence).
What is the main difference between Asch and Sherif's conformity studies?
Another difference between the two experiments was that
Asch had control over his participants and Sherif had none
. The effect of this was that the results could show conformity clearly as it was evidently definable conformity was occurring whereas Sherif's results were in ranges that followed a norm.
What are 7 conditions that strengthen conformity?
Seven conditions that strengthen conformity: 1)
one feels insecure
, 2) group has at least three people, 3) group is unanimous, 4) _____________, 5) one has no prior commitment to a response, 6) group is watching, 7) less individualistic society.
What are two types of conformity?
Normative conformity
involves changing one's behavior in order to fit in with the group. Informational conformity happens when a person lacks the knowledge and looks to the group for information and direction. Compliance involves changing one's behavior while still internally disagreeing with the group.
What was the procedure of the Asch experiment?
Asch used a line judgement task, where
he placed on real naïve participants in a room with seven confederates (actors)
, who had agreed their answers in advance. The real participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other seven people were also real participants.
Is the Asch experiment reliable?
Asch's results have been replicated several times so the results are reliable
. The results of the experiment in terms of conformity rates can, to some extent, explain why people conform to social and cultural norms in real life. Conformity may be universal to some degree but conformity rates vary cross-culturally.
What is the central idea of Asch experiment?
The Asch experiment showed that
people's individual perceptions can be influenced by the perceptions of a larger group
. Study subjects in the Asch experiment were tricked into believing that their peers were also participants, instead of confederates.
How is Asch's line study ethnocentric?
The main evaluation points for Asch's study involve
ethical issues, historical/cultural context
and the lab experiment method: The sample is limited as it was all male (androcentric), American (ethnocentric). … Another ethical issue is the potential physical and/or psychological harm.
