AO3

• Artificial situation and task:

  • Limitation
  • Pps knew they were in a research study and may have gone along with expectations
  • Task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore no reason not to conform
  • According to Susan Fike (2014) Asch’s group did not resemble groups we experience in everyday life
  • Findings do not generalise to real world situations
• Limited application:

  • Limitation- pps were American men
  • Other research suggests women may be more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted (Neto 1955)
  • US is an individualist culture and similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures such as China have found conformity rates are higher (Bond and smith 1996)
  • Findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures
• Research support:

  • Strength- support from other studies for effects of task difficulty
  • Todd Lucas et al (2006) asked pps to solve ’easy’ and ‘hard’ math problems and pps were given answers from three other students
  • Pps conformed more often when problems were harder
• Counterpoint to research support:

  • Lucas et al study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested
  • Pps with high confidence in math abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence
  • Shows individual level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables, Asch did not research roles of individual factors
• Ethical issues:

  • Asch’s research increased knowledge of why people conform, which may help mindless destructive conformity
  • Naive pps deceived as they thought the other people involved were also genuine
  • Ethical cost should be weighed up against benefits