conformity

• Conformity is a form of social influence where group pressure, real or imagined, results in a change in behaviour.
• The pressure from the group can be a membership group, which are groups we belong to, or a reference group, which are groups we do not belong to but admire.
• Conformity is often referred to as majority influence.
• Asch's key study was more interested in whether people would conform to a group even if it meant doing something that was clearly wrong.
• The original study had six participants, but the number of participants varied in later studies to see the effect.
• Asch's research was highly scientific with controlled conditions, making it easy to replicate and test the findings, making it highly reliable.
• Asch's research used only male US participants, making his results unrepresentative and unable to be generalised.
• Participants in Asch's research knew they were in a study and the correct answer was unambiguous, which may have led to people conforming simply to benefit the study, known as demand characteristics, making his findings unreliable.
• Asch conducted several variations to his experiment to investigate what factors may affect the conformity rate.