What's covered
Key facts
Asch's aim was to investigate whether people would conform to a majority giving an obviously wrong answer.
Although early theories saw crowds as violent mobs, research shows most crowd behaviour is actually peaceful and can be prosocial (helping).
Adorno argued the authoritarian personality develops from harsh, strict parenting in childhood.
The arousal:cost–reward model says a bystander feels arousal at seeing distress, then weighs costs against rewards before helping.
About 75% of participants conformed on at least one critical trial.
Feeling anonymous in a crowd is the main factor causing deindividuation, reducing inhibitions and the sense of personal responsibility.
The agentic shift is the move from the autonomous state to the agentic state.
Diffusion of responsibility: in a group, the responsibility to help feels shared, so each individual feels less obliged to act.
The naive participant sat with confederates (actors) who gave pre-agreed wrong answers.
Deindividuation is the loss of a person's sense of individual identity when they are part of a crowd or group.
Sample questions
A taste of the 58 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
What was the aim of Asch's 1951 study?
- •To investigate how memory recall changes when retelling an unfamiliar story
- •To investigate whether children can take another person's visual viewpoint
- ✓To investigate whether people conform to a majority's obviously wrong answer
- •To investigate whether people obey an authority figure who orders harm
What is deindividuation?
- •Becoming more self-aware when others are watching
- ✓Losing your sense of individual identity in a crowd
- •Refusing to follow the behaviour of a crowd
- •Working less hard when part of a larger group
What is obedience?
- •Agreeing privately with a group's majority opinion
- •Changing your view because of peer pressure
- •Copying the behaviour of a role model you admire
- ✓Following a direct order from an authority figure
Which pair are the two social factors affecting bystander behaviour?
- •Age of the victim and time of day involved
- •Mood of the bystander and weather conditions
- ✓Presence of others and cost of helping
- •Similarity to victim and expertise of the bystander
Who were the actors that gave pre-agreed wrong answers in Asch's study?
- ✓Confederates
- •Independent observers
- •Naive participants
- •The control group
What is social loafing?
- •Losing your personal identity when part of a large crowd
- ✓Putting in less effort in a group than when working alone
- •Putting in more effort in a group than when working alone
- •Refusing to take part in any group task at all
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