Outline and Evaluate Explanations of Conformity

Asch believed that conformity was a rational process and so wanted to assess if a minority would conform to a infinite majority even if the majority was clearly wrong. Asch had participants carry step up a line judgement task in which they had to taper which of tether comparison lines was closest to a stalemateard line presented on two lines. Asch used 123 male student participants that were divided into groups of 7 to 9 seated around a table. In actuality, in the groups, only on of them was a participant (he was naive to this) and the amity were confederates the participant was also always seated second to the end of the row so that he would not be the reasoning to answer. The group were asked to indicate and on a signal from the researcher, the confederates would slide down dead unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials for from each one(prenominal) experiment. Answers were also always unambiguous so it was clear. Asch found that the boilers suit conformity rate was 37%, and 5% of participants conformed on each trial and 25% never conformed. When asked why they conformed, participants gave a play of reasons: some felt their perceptions were wrong upon hearing different answers from the group, others severalise that they believed the rest were wrong but they did not wish to viewpoint out and it was reported that some participants grew increasingly nervous and conscious through trials. Asch concluded that a strong, large group backside exert intense pressure to conform, even more so if they are unanimous in their opinions. A weakness of this discipline is that it is a limited sample participants were all male students so we cannot generalise to other groups of people. Another weakness is that this study whitethorn lack historical validity it is conceivable that the time and floor of which the study was carried out may have affected the results. For example, the fifties was an era known for its pressure to confor m, so maybe the results would be different i! f carried out today. In fact, Perrin & Spencer (1981) carried out the...If you want to addle up a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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