Asch (1955) study

Question 1

AIM

Answer 1

Would people conform in highly unambiguous situations?

Question 2

METHOD

Answer 2

123 American male undergraduates. His naive participants sat on a table of six to eight confederates. On 12 critical trials out of 18 the confederates would deliberately give the wrong answer.

Question 3

QUESTION

Answer 3

Which of three lines is the same length as another comparison line?

Question 4

FINDINGS

Answer 4

75% of naive participants conformed at least once, so 25% did not conform at all.

Question 5

CONCLUSION

Answer 5

People do indeed conform out of the need to fit in with the rest of the group as the naive participant sometimes copied the confederates’ wrong answer even though the correct answer was obvious.

Question 6

Evaluation weakness: lack ecological validity

Answer 6

Williams & Sogon (1984) found conformity was highest amongst groups of friends rather than strangers.

Question 7

Evaluation weakness: ethical issues

Answer 7

The naive participant was deceived which could lead to psychology harm. However, it could be argued that this was minimal so any deception could be justified.

Question 8

Evaluation weakness: limited application of findings

Answer 8

Research suggests that women conform more than men (NETO) and people in collectivists cultures such as China conform more than individualist cultures such as US (Bond Smith)

Question 9

Evaluation weakness

Answer 9

Artificial task - demand characteristics, lacks mundane realism

Question 10

Evaluation weakness: child of its time

Answer 10

Replication by Perrin & Spencer (1980) found engineering students only 1 conforming response in 396 trials.