Asch's study into conformity

• Aim- degree to which individuals would conform to a majority who gave an obviously wrong answer
• Procedure- 123 male american undergraduates took part in a 'visual perception' task alongside 7 confederates acting as pps
• All pps were shown a standard line and 3 comparison lines and had to say which one matched the original. The ppt was one of the last to answer- perhaps ISI?, on 12 of the 18 trials the confederates all gave the wrong answer.
• Findings of the study- pps conformed 37% of the time on clinical trials, approx 75% of people conformed at least once
• conclusion- most people do conform to fit in with a group, suggesting normative social influence
• Variations- Group size- conformity increases up until the majority has 3 memb then it plateus, unanimity- changed the agreement of the group by having one confederate give the correct answer, conformity decreases to 5%
• as the task difficulty increased the rates of conformity also increased with it.
• potential issue- lacks temporal validity- conducted in 1950s- McCarthyism high- people afraid to differ
• lacks mundane realism- set of lines, not conformity in real life examples