Asch Conformity Research

• What was the aim of Asch's study?


  To investigate the effects of social influence on an individual's decision-making process
• Asch's procedure for conformity research


  Recruit participants, assign to groups of 8, present with cards and lines, ask for shortest line, have one confederate give incorrect answer, record responses, repeat for 12 cards
• Findings

  74% of participants conformed at least once, 26% of participants never conformed,participants conformed 32% of the time.
• Asch’s Ethical Issues


  there was no informed consent, participants may have felt anxious, they were deceived
• Generalisability


  all male, all American, is a weakness as females may have different conformity levels
• Ecological validity


  Artificial setting, so they may have chose incorrect answer due to embarrassment but may not in real life situations
• Waters and Hans (2009)


  1/3 of 3500 said that if voted privately they would have voted against the majority decision
• Group size


  one confederate 3%, two confederates 13%, three to fifteen 32%
• Unanimity


  conformity decreased to 5% when there was a dissenter.
• Task difficulty


  Increased conformity when the task was more ambiguous
• Supporting evidence


  Lucas at al 2006, found more conformed when problems were harder