Lesson 3.2.1.1.2

3.2.1.1.2 Asch's study of conformity Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 5

20 questions

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Lesson 3.2.1.1.2, Asch's study of conformity: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA GCSE Psychology (8182), Unit 5: Social influence, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What task did Asch use in his conformity study?

    • Watching a video of a crowd and rating its mood
    • Judging which of three comparison lines matched a standard line
    • Pressing a button to deliver electric shocks
    • Completing a memory test using lists of nonsense syllables

  2. How many real participants were in each Asch group?

    • Two real participants and one confederate
    • Thirty real participants in a single room
    • One real participant alongside confederates
    • Ten real participants in each group

  3. What did Asch find about conformity on the critical trials?

    • Exactly half of answers conformed to the wrong majority
    • About one third of answers conformed to the wrong majority
    • Almost no answers conformed to the wrong majority
    • Almost all answers conformed to the wrong majority

  4. What was a confederate in Asch's study?

    • A judge who decided whether the study was ethical
    • A researcher who recorded the participant's answers
    • An actor who gave deliberately wrong answers on critical trials
    • A participant who knew the true purpose of the study

  5. Roughly what percentage of participants conformed at least once in Asch's study?

    • 25%
    • 75%
    • 100%
    • 50%

  6. Which variable did Asch change in a later variation of his study?

    • Group size
    • Colour of the lines
    • Age of the participants
    • Time of day

  7. How did Asch measure conformity?

    • Counting the wrong answers that matched the majority on critical trials
    • Asking participants to rate how confident they felt after each set of trials
    • Measuring the time taken to answer each question on the line judgement task
    • Recording brain activity while participants answered each line judgement question

  8. In a variation with one confederate who answered correctly, what happened to conformity?

    • Conformity rose only for the confederate who gave the correct answer
    • Conformity dropped sharply, showing that dissent from others reduces pressure
    • Conformity rose because the group felt more united against the single dissenter
    • Conformity stayed exactly the same across all of the trials in the study

  9. What does Asch's study suggest about social pressure?

    • Ordinary people can conform to clearly wrong group answers in a laboratory setting
    • Social pressure never affects judgements of simple lines in a laboratory setting
    • Social pressure only affects people in very large groups of strangers
    • Only people with low intelligence conform to groups when the task is very difficult

  10. Why was the task in Asch's study chosen to be easy?

    • So that the study could be run without confederates in every trial
    • So that participants could be paid less for each correct answer given
    • So participants would answer quickly without thinking about the question
    • So that conformity could be seen as going against a clear, correct answer

  11. A participant says the wrong answer aloud after four others have done the same. Which explanation is most likely?

    • The participant has poor eyesight that prevents seeing the lines
    • Normative pressure to fit in with the group
    • The participant was given wrong information by the researcher
    • The participant realised the lines had been changed

  12. Which ethical concern is most closely linked to Asch's study?

    • Right to withdraw, because participants could not leave the room
    • Deception, because participants were not told the others were confederates
    • Confidentiality, because names were published
    • Protection from harm, because participants received electric shocks

  13. Asch's study is criticised for being artificial. Which evaluation point does this raise?

    • Higher ecological validity, because it used real crowds in a public setting
    • High reliability, because it used a random sample of university students
    • Lower ecological validity, because the lines task differs from real-life conformity
    • Ethical approval, because the study was approved by the BPS before it began

  14. Which strength of Asch's study is most accurate?

    • It is a controlled lab study that can be repeated, supporting its reliability
    • It proved that every participant conformed on every trial
    • It used a random sample of the whole population to ensure validity
    • It showed conformity is always caused by personality

  15. Which weakness of Asch's study relates to the sample?

    • It used too many confederates to be valid
    • It used only male American students
    • It used participants of all ages
    • It used qualitative interviews alone

  16. What was the purpose of the confederates answering first?

    • To provide the researcher with a second set of data for comparison
    • To check that the lines were correctly printed on the card before testing
    • To create pressure on the real participant to agree with the group
    • To teach participants the correct answer before each of the trials

  17. In which decade did Asch carry out his conformity study?

    • 1970s
    • 1990s
    • 1950s
    • 1930s

  18. What was the key dependent variable in Asch's study?

    • The number of times the real participant gave the same wrong answer as the majority
    • The time taken for each participant to speak aloud before giving an answer
    • The confidence rating given after each trial in the second half of the study
    • The number of lines the participant could remember after the study had ended

  19. What does Asch's study suggest about the role of independence?

    • Independence only occurs when participants are paid for each correct answer
    • Independence is shown to be impossible in any group setting of more than two people
    • Having just one other person give a correct answer can greatly reduce conformity
    • Independence increases only when the group is very large and the task is simple

  20. Asch used 18 trials, of which 12 were critical. How many critical trials were there?

    • 3
    • 18
    • 6
    • 12

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