Conformity: Asch's research

Question 1

What did Solomon Asch aim to assess throughout his study?

Answer 1

Asch aimed to assess how much people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is certain (unambiguous).

Question 2

Between what years did Asch conduct his research on conformity?

Answer 2

Asch conducted his research between 1951 and 1955

Question 3

How did Asch test conformity?

Answer 3

Asch tested conformity by showing participants two large white cards at a time. On one card was a ‘standard line’ and on the other card there were three ‘comparison lines’. One of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other two were always substantially different. The participant was asked which of the three lines matched the standard.

Question 4

Who were the participants in Asch’s study?

Answer 4

The participants in this study were 123 American male undergraduates. Each one of them were classified as naive participants.

Question 5

How many confederates were present in Asch’s study?

Answer 5

Asch had between six and eight confederates in each of his trials.

Question 6

How were the confederates instructed to behave throughout the study?

Answer 6

On the first few trials all of the confederates gave the right answers but then they started making errors. All the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer.

Question 7

How many trials did each of the participants take part in?

Answer 7

Altogether each participant took part in 18 trials and on 12 ‘critical trials’ the confederates gave the wrong answer.

Question 8

Each participant experienced 18 trials in total. What did Asch mean by a ‘trial’?

Answer 8

A trial was one occasion identifying the length of a standard line.

Question 9

Across the 18 trials, what was the average rate of conformity?

Answer 9

The average rate of conformity throughout the 18 trials was 36.8%.

Question 10

What percentage of participants never conformed on any of the trials?

Answer 10

25% of participants never conformed

Question 11

What percentage of participants conformed at least once throughout the study?

Answer 11

75% of the participants conformed at least once during Asch’s study.

Question 12

The term ‘Asch effect’ has been used to describe the findings from this study. What is meant by the term ‘Asch effect’?

Answer 12

The extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous.

Question 13

Asch proposed four factors to explain why 75% of his participants conformed at least once across the 18 trials. Name these four factors.

Answer 13

1. Distortion of perception (a small number of
   participants came to see the lines in the same
   way as the majority)
2. Distortion of judgement (people became
   doubtful of their own judgement)
3. Distortion of action (most participants
   continued to privately disagree with the group,
   but changed their public answer to avoid
   disapproval)
4. Fear of rejection (participants feared rejection)

Question 14

After conducting his initial study, Asch developed his research further. Explain how Asch progressed his research into conformity.

Answer 14

Asch was further interested in the conditions that might lead to an increase or a decrease in conformity. He investigated these by carrying out some variations of his original procedure.

Question 15

Asch carried out three variations of his original procedure. What were his three variations?

Answer 15

Group size, task difficulty and unanimity

Question 16

One of Asch’s three variations was group size. Explain how this influenced conformity rates.

Answer 16

Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group. Asch found that with three confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. The addition of further confederates made little difference. This therefore suggests that a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but, at the other extreme, there is no need for a majority or more than three.

Question 17

One of Asch’s three variations was unanimity. Explain how this influenced conformity rates.

Answer 17

Asch wanted to know if the presence of another, non-conforming, person would affect the naive participant’s conformity. To test this, he introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others (sometimes they gave the correct answer and sometimes they gave the wrong one). The presence of a dissenting confederate meant that conformity was reduced by a quarter from the level it was when the majority was unanimous. The presence of a dissenter enabled the naive participant to behave more independently, suggesting that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous.

Question 18

One of Asch’s three variations was task difficulty. Explain how this influenced conformity rates.

Answer 18

Asch made the line-judging task more difficult by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity increased under these conditions. This suggests that ISI plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. This is because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and we are wrong.

Question 19

What was Asch’s final conclusion?

Answer 19

Asch concluded that majority influence is dependent on situational factors, such as task difficulty, and individual differences.

Question 20

Evaluation point: ‘One limitation of Asch’s experiment derives from conflicting research evidence conducted by Perrin and Spencer’. Write a paragraph outlining this AO3 point.

Answer 20

One limitation of Asch’s experiment derives from conflicting research evidence conducted by Perrin and Spencer. Forty years after Asch’s initial study, Perrin and Spencer replicated his lines experiment and found that only one student out of 396 participants conformed. An explanation has been put forward, suggesting that perhaps the 1950s was a particularly conformist time in America, which is why Asch found a higher average conformity rate of 36.8%. These findings therefore act as a weakness of Asch’s initial research because it alludes to the idea that perhaps the ‘Asch effect’ is limited to location and time, making it an inconstant feature of human behaviour. Because findings regarding conformity have not remained linear, Asch’s study can be criticised for lacking in reliability and temporal validity. Additionally, it suggests that Asch’s investigation was reductionist in nature because if only 1 out of 396 participants conformed in a replicated study, it suggests that other environmental factors, affecting whether or not an individual conforms, have been ignored.

Question 21

Evaluation point: ‘One limitation of Asch’s study is his limited sample’. Write a paragraph outlining this AO3 point.

Answer 21

One limitation of Asch’s study is his limited sample. Although he recruited a sample of 123 participants, which is relatively large in size, all individuals were American males. This acts as a weakness of his experiment because the limited sample results in it being impossible to use Asch’s research to explain conformity on a large scale. Because only males were included, his theory can be criticised for being androcentric. As a result, his findings cannot be generalised to females, so Asch’s study tells us nothing about conformity in women. Evidence has suggested that females are more likely to conform than males, so it it brings to our attention that perhaps the findings are invalid because if women were included, the average rate of conformity is likely to have been higher than 36.8%. Also, because only American participants were recruited, Asch’s inquiry can be criticised further for being ethnocentric. Again, we are forced to question how the findings would have been affected if collectivist cultures, such as China, had been utilised. Collectively, these two criticisms lower the population validity of Asch’s research, making it unrepresentative of society.

Question 22

Evaluation point: ‘One weakness of Asch’s research study is its lack of authenticity when attempting to explain conformity’. Write an AO3 paragraph outlining this AO3 point.

Answer 22

One weakness of Asch’s research is its lack of authenticity when attempting to explain conformity. This came about as a result of his use of a laboratory environment, which consisted of manipulated variations, such as task difficulty and unanimity of the majority. This acts as a limitation of Asch’s research because it provides the reader with no psychological insight into how people conform in real-life contexts. As a result, his experiment can be criticised for lacking in external validity and real-life application. In this light, Asch’s work is environmentally reductionist because it is failing to recognise additional external factors which might influence whether or not an individual chooses to conform. Despite there being several associated limitations, Asch can be praised for his study being high in internal validity. Because conditions have been controlled, the study is easy to replicate and one can be confident that the findings are the direct result of manipulated variations, not extraneous variables.