Asch's Research - Evaluation:

Question 1

Artificial situation and task:
Lacks external/ecological validity:

Answer 1

They knew they were in a research so demand characteristics occurred
Trivial task, did not impact 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 2

Limited application:
Lacks population validity:

Answer 2

All men from USA
Other research has suggested that women may be more conformist due to their concern with social relationships
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)

Question 3

Lacks temporal/historical validity:

Answer 3

1950s - Height of the Cold War
More conformist due to fear of communist spies
People did not want to appear different
Results may be different if the study was repeated today

Question 4

Ethical issues:

Answer 4

The 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

Question 5

Research support:

Answer 5

Lucas et al (2006):
Participants conform more to wrong answers in hard problems (task difficulty)

Question 6

Counterpoint to research support:

Answer 6

More complex
Individual-level factors can influence conformity, with confident maths skills being less likely to conform
Asch did not investigate these individual factors’ roles