Year 1 Psychology Revision
,YEAR 1
,SOCIAL INFLUENCE
, ASCH’S RESEARCH
What was Soloman Asch’s 1951 baseline procedure for? What were the arrangements?
- To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of - The participant were testing 6 to 8.
others even in a situation where the answer is certain - Only one was a genuine (naive) participant - always seated either
(unambiguous) last or next to last in the group
- The others were all confederates of Asch - they all gave the
What was Asch’s baseline procedure? same incorrect scripted answers each time.
- Genuine p’pant did not know the others were fake p’pants.
- 123 American men were tested
What were the baseline findings?
- Each participant saw two large white cards on each trial
- Line X on one card - other card has Line A B C one was clearly - On average the genuine p’pants agreed with the confederates’
the same -> say out loud which of the comparison lines was the incorrect answers 36.8% of the time - conformed about ⅓ of
same length as the standard line X. the time
- There were individual differences - 25% of the p’pants never
gave a wrong answer = never conformed.
,YEAR 1
,SOCIAL INFLUENCE
, ASCH’S RESEARCH
What was Soloman Asch’s 1951 baseline procedure for? What were the arrangements?
- To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of - The participant were testing 6 to 8.
others even in a situation where the answer is certain - Only one was a genuine (naive) participant - always seated either
(unambiguous) last or next to last in the group
- The others were all confederates of Asch - they all gave the
What was Asch’s baseline procedure? same incorrect scripted answers each time.
- Genuine p’pant did not know the others were fake p’pants.
- 123 American men were tested
What were the baseline findings?
- Each participant saw two large white cards on each trial
- Line X on one card - other card has Line A B C one was clearly - On average the genuine p’pants agreed with the confederates’
the same -> say out loud which of the comparison lines was the incorrect answers 36.8% of the time - conformed about ⅓ of
same length as the standard line X. the time
- There were individual differences - 25% of the p’pants never
gave a wrong answer = never conformed.
