QCAA Psychology - Asch (1951)

Select the word that correctly completes the following sentence.

Conformity is the tendency of a person to adjust their ​ (a)   so that they match the expectations of another person or group.

• behaviours
• attitudes
• feelings
• thoughts

Answer explanation

Conformity describes how we adjust our behaviour to follow the behaviour or rules of the group we belong to.

Identify the control group for Asch's initial Conformity Experiment.

• Participants wrote down their answers privately.

• The participant went first.

• An ally participant was used.

• Only 1 confederate was used.

Recall which of the following factors caused levels of conformity to decrease in the experiments conducted by Asch (1951).

• Introducting an ally.

• Increasing the number of confederates.

• Increasing the number of trials.

• Using participants with the same gender.

Recall the percentage of Asch's (1951) participants that conformed to incorrect majorities in the main experiment (without variations).

• 32%

• 40%

• 25%

• 75%

A strength of Asch's conformity experiment is the...

• validity

• ease of application

• replicability

• reliability

One criticism of Asch's experiment was that he used a biased sample.

Identify the type of validity this would be.

• Internal

• External

• Ecological

• Population

Answer explanation

Asch used a biased sample population. All participants were male students from the same university and belonged to the same age group. The results cannot be generalised to other social groups and are not representative of the population.

Normative influence happens when people conform...

• when they believe the group is correct.

• when they want to be liked by others.

• because of social norms.

• without thinking about it.

Answer explanation

Normative influence refers to a person's tendency to go along with the group in order to fit in/gain acceptance into the group or be liked.

Identify the term used to describe an actor in the experiment.

• Confederate

• Subject

• Learner

• Participant

Bond and Smith (1996) analysed at least 133 separate studies from 17 countries and found that "Collectivist countries tended to show higher levels of conformity than individualist countries" (p. 111). They also noted that levels of conformity in the US fell from 1951 to 1996, showing that cultural change over time can also affect results. Individualism has increased by roughly 12% worldwide since 1960. This may be due to the influence of western cultures throughout the world or the socioeconomic development in countries.

Explain why levels of conformity have been found to be decreasing in recent times.

Answer explanation

Levels of conformity around the world have dropped since the 1960s. As the western world has had a strong influence over the socioeconomic development in many countries across the globe (including eastern cultures), they have also influenced a shift from collectivist culture to individualistic. As individualist cultures do not value conformity as highly as collectivist cultures do, this explains the observed drop in conformity.

Keywords:

• Conformity

• Collectivist cultures

• Individualstic cultures

• Western cultures

Solomon Asch is today best known for his pioneering studies of group ​ (a)   . By staging a false experiment of "visual perception", Asch was able to test both the ​ (b)   and the personal factors that contributed to a person's willingness to agree with a ​ (c)   that was clearly mistaken.

• conformity
• situational
• majority
• obedience
• norms
• minority
• values