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 autocratic majority even if the majority was clearly wrong. Asch had participants carry forbidden a line judgement task in which they had to record 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 union were confederates the participant was also always seated second to the wonderment of the row so that he would not be the conclusion to answer. The group were asked to indicate and on a signal from the researcher, the confederates would flip dead unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials for separately(prenominal) experiment. Answers were also always unambiguous so it was clear. Asch found that the boilersuit conformi ty rate was 37%, and 5% of participants conformed on each trial and 25% never conformed.

When asked why they conformed, participants gave a tour of reasons: some felt their perceptions were wrong upon hearing different answers from the group, others declare that they believed the rest were wrong but they did not wish to acquit out and it was reported that some participants grew increasingly nervous and self-conscious through trials. Asch concluded that a strong, large group butt exert intense pressure to conform, even more so if they are unanimous in their opinions. A weakness of this work is that it is a limited sample participants were all mal! e 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 robe 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 unclutter up a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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