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Conformity - Asch
Evaluation
Poor Temporal Validity
Findings
Low Mundane Realism
- Asch's study was conducted in the 1950's, where conformity in USA was high due to McCarthyism.
- Perrin and Spencer replicated Asch's study with engineering students in England and found only one student conformed.
- Engineering students felt more confident about measuring lines than the original sample, suggesting Asch's study lacks temporal validity.
Lacks Population Validity
- The findings do not generalise to everyday situations as participants knew they were in a research study.
- The task was also relatively trivial so there was no reason not to conform.
- Participants didn't resemble groups part of everyday life either.
- According to Fiske, the groups were not very groupy.
- Asch's study can only be applied to American young males.
- Nato suggests women may be more conformist as they're more concerned about social relationships.
- Bond and Smith found that collectivist cultures are more conformist than individualist cultures.
- This means Asch's study lacks population validity.
36.8% of participants were incorrect as they conformed with the majority. 25% of participants never conformed on any of the critical trials.
Only Applies to Certain Situations
Ethical Issues
- Participants had to answer out loud and were with a group of strangers they wanted to impress.
- Means conformity was higher than it would normally be.
- Williams and Sogon found conformity was actually higher when the majority were friends rather than strangers.
- The true participants were deceived, which is unethical.
- There were not aware the other 'participants' were only confederates.
Variations
- Group size - Found that a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but there's no need for a majority of more than 3.
- Unanimity - The presence of a dissenter enabled the participant to behave more independently.
- Task difficulty - When comparison lines were similar in length to the stimulus line, conformity increased. This suggests that ISI plays a greater role when the task becomes ambiguous so we're more likely to assume the majority are right.
Procedure
- 123 American male undergraduate vounteers were asked to take part in a vision test.
- All but one of the participants were confederates.
- Participants were asked to look at 3 different length lines and state which was the same length as the stimulus line.
- The participant was also last or second to last to answer.
- The confederates gave the same wrong answer on 12/18 critical trials.
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