asch

• Asch baseline procedure aim (1951)


  To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain (i.e. unambiguous)
• Asch's baseline procedure: standard and comparison lines

  • 123 American men were tested, each one in a group with other apparent participants
  • Each participant saw two large white cards on each trial
  • On one of the cards is the standard line
  • On the second card are lines A, B and C (the three comparison lines)
  • One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length as X
  • The other two are substantially different (clearly wrong)
  • On each trial the participants had to say (out loud) which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line
• Physical arrangement of the participants in the study


  • groups of 6 to 8
  • only one was a genuine (naive) participant, always seated last or second to last
  • others were confederates who gave incorrect, scripted answers each time
• Baseline findings


  • On average, the genuine participants agreed with confederates' incorrect answers 36.8% of the time (i.e. they conformed about a third of the time)
  • There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (i.e. never conformed)
• Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead to an increase or a decrease in conformity.
• Variables investigated by Asch

  1. group size
  2. unanimity
  3. task difficulty
• How did Asch test group size?

  He varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15 (total group size was from 2 to 16)
• What relationship did Asch find between group size and conformity rate?


  a curvilinear relationship
• Asch findings - group size

  • Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point
  • With three confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
  • But the presence of more confederates made little difference - the conformity rate soon levelled off
• What do the findings of the effect of group size suggest?

  Most people are very sensitive to the views of others

  because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
• Effect of group size

  • increasing the size of the group by adding more confederates = increasing the size of the majority
  • conformity increased with group size, but ONLY up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than 3
• How did Asch test effects of unanimity?

  • tested if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the naïve participant's conformity by introducing a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates
  • in one variation of the study this person gave the correct answer and in another variation he gave a (different) wrong one
• Asch's findings on unanimity

  • The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a nonconformist
  • The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
  • The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naïve participant to behave more independently
  • This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the genuine participant
• What do Asch's findings on unanimity suggest?

  • The influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous
  • Non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority's unanimous view
• Effect of unanimity

  • the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line
  • this produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naïve participants
• Unanimity is the extent to which all the members of a group agree
• How did Asch test task difficulty?

  • increased the difficulty of the line-judging by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each in length
  • this meant it became harder for the genuine participants to see differences between the lines
• Asch findings on task difficulty

  • conformity increased
  • the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder - it is unclear to the participant the right answer is
  • it is natural to look to others for guidance and to assume that they are right and you are wrong (ISI)
• Limitations of Asch's study

  • artificial situation and task
  • ethical issues
  • limited application
• How is Asch's situation/task being artificial a limitation?

  • Px knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics)
  • Task was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform
  • Fiske (2014), 'Asch's groups were not very groupy', i.e. they did not really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life
  • Findings do not generalise to real-world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important
• How is limited application a limitation?

  • All of Asch's participants were American men so his findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures
• Explain limited application in relation to gender

  • Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted (Neto 1995)
• Explain its limited application to culture

  • All Px were American, US is an individualist culture
  • Similar conformity studies were conducted in collectivist cultures
  • E.g. China where they have found that conformity rates are higher (Bond and Smith 1996)
• Individualist culture is where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social group e.g. US
• Collectivist cultures is where the social group is more important than the individual e.g. China
• How are ethical issues a limitation in relation to Asch?

  • The naïve participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved in the procedure (the confederates) were also genuine participants like themselves
• Give a strength for Asch's research

  • Support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
  • Lucas et al. (2006) asked their participants to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths problems
  • Px were given answers from 3 other students (not actually real)
  • The px conformed more often when the problems were harder
  • This shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity
• Give a counterpoint for Asch research support strength

  • Lucas et al's study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested
  • Px with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence
  • This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables (e.g. task difficulty)
  • Asch did not research the roles of individual factors
• Findings:

  • naive Px conformed 36.8% of the time
  • 74% at least once
• Variables investigated by Asch

  • Group size: three confederates 31.8% conformity, more made little difference
  • Unanimity: presence of a dissenter reduced conformity
  • Task difficulty; conformity increased with harder task, showing informational social influence