Outline and Evaluate Explanations of Conformity

Asch believed that conformity was a rational process and so appreciate to assess if a minority would conform to a dogmatic majority even if the majority was clearly wrong. Asch had participants carry off a line judgement task in which they had to paint a picture 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 residue were confederates the participant was also always seated second to the admiration of the row so that he would not be the determination to answer. The group were asked to indicate and on a signal from the researcher, the confederates would send packing dead unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials for to each one(prenominal) experiment. Answers were also always unambiguous so it was clear. Asch found that the boilersuit conformity rate was 37%, and 5% of participants conformed on each trial and 25% never conformed.

When asked why they conformed, participants gave a turning of reasons: some felt their perceptions were wrong upon hearing different answers from the group, others aver that they believed the rest were wrong but they did not wish to groundwork out and it was reported that some participants grew increasingly nervous and conscious through trials. Asch concluded that a strong, large group hind end exert intense pressure to conform, even more so if they are unanimous in their opinions. A weakness of t his field of study 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 invest of which the study was carried out may have affected the results. For example, the fifties was an era known for its pressure to conform, so maybe the results would be different if carried out today. In fact, Perrin & Spencer (1981) carried out the...If you want to subscribe up a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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