1.1.3 Asch's and variables for conformity

Question 1

Procedure of Asch’s study?

Answer 1

/Participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8
/Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines
/Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length
/In each group there was only one genuine (naive) participant the remaining were confederates
/The genuine participant was seated second to last and did not know the other participants were fake participants
/The fake confederate participants all gave the same incorrect answer
/Confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails

Question 2

Findings of Asch’s study?

Answer 2

/On average, the genuine participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time:
/Genuine participants conformed a third of the time
/75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial
/25% of participants never gave a wrong answer, which shows there were individual differences

Question 3

1st evaluation (PEEL) idea. Negative

Answer 3

Artificial situation and task

One limitation of Asch’s reach is that it is artificial in both task and situation
Participants may have gone along with what was expected as they knew they were in a research study (Demand Characteristics)
The task was trivial and did not impact the participants in their ‘real life’, which means there was no reason not to conform
Findings do not generalise to real-world situations, especially where there could be important consequences to conformity

Question 4

2nd evaluation (PEEL) idea. Negative

Answer 4

Limited application

Another limitation, Asch’s participants were all men from the USA
Other research has suggested that women may be more conformist due to their concern with social relationships
The USA is an individualist culture (where people are concerned with themselves as the individual more so than in collectivist cultures where they are concerned with their social groups)
Findings tell us little about how women or those from other cultures may confirm

Question 5

3rd evaluation (PEEL) idea. Positive

Answer 5

Research support

One strength of Asch’s research is it has been supported by other studies
Lucas et al (2006) asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems and found participants conformed to the wrong answer more often when the problems were hard
This supports Asch’s claim that task difficulty is one variable that effects conformity
However, Lucas et al (2006) also found that conformity is more complex than suggested by Asch
They found individual-level factors can influence conformity and those who were confident in their maths skills were less likely to conform
Asch did not research the roles of individual factors

Question 6

4th evaluation (PEEL) idea. Negative

Answer 6

Ethical issues

The genuine (naive) participants were deceived as they thought the confederates were also participants
However, it can be argued that this ethical cost does not outweigh the findings of the research