Asch

• aim: to see how the minority would act when the majority are behaving differently 
• Procedure 

  • 123 male undergraduates 
  • Asked to look at three lines 
  • Took turns in calling out which line was the same length as the standard line 
  • On 12/18 of trials C were instructed to give the same answer that was incorrect 
• Findings 

  • average conformity rate was 33% 
  • 75% conformed at least once 
  • BUT = there were Individual differences  
  • 25% of Ps never conformed 
  • 5% conformed on all 12 trials 
  • Control condition= 1% mistakes 
• Conclusions 

  • 75% conformed at least once 
  • = people generally wants to conform to majority 
  • Asch concluded it was due to NSI (avoiding social rejection) 
  • Answer was so obvious 
  • People knew answer was wrong but they still went along with the majority 
  • = backed up by: When Ps interviewed  
  • = privately agreed with their own beliefs but changed public behaviour 
  • (Can’t be ISI because this is the desire to be right and p knew majority were wrong) 
• A strength of Asch's study is that it is high in internal validity.
• Asch's study is a TIB, a highly controlled lab experiment.
• Asch limited extraneous variables in his study, allowing him to focus on the independent variable and dependent variable relationship.
• Asch repeated his experiment many times, conducting variation studies.
• Asch observed the effects of different variables such as group size, unanimity, and task difficulty on conformity.
• Asch's study is highly reliable and accurately measures conformity due to the high number of repetitions.
• Repeating the study enabled Asch to draw conclusions about how situational factors affect conformity.
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  HOWEVER, a weakness of Asch’s research is that it is low in historical validity 

  ·  It has been criticised for being a “child of it’s time” 

  ·  It was conducted in 1956 

  ·  = a strong anti-Communist period 

  ·  Which is recognised as being a highly conformist era 

  THEREFORE this limits our ability to generalise Asch’s findings to explain conformity in the current time 

  BECAUSE nowadays we are much less conformist, meaning the findings don’t reflect current behaviour 

    
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  A further weakness of Asch is his study lacks ecological validity  

  • TIB the setting was artificial 
  • = this is because it took place in a lab 
  • ALSO the task was unrealistic 
  • Because it's not an everyday behaviour to sit in a room with strangers guessing line lengths  
  • = so the task lacks mundane realism 

  THEREFORE it’s difficult to generalise Asch’s findings to explain conformity in real life  

  BECAUSE in a more natural setting with a more realistic task, people might have behaved differently 

    
• Another limitation of A’s research is that it can’t explain individual differences 

  ·  75% conformed at least once 

  ·  = Asch concluded this was due to NSI 

  ·  (desire to fit in & fear of social rejection) 

  ·  HOWEVER 5% conformed on every trial (highly conformist) 

  ·  AND 25% never conformed (highly resistant to group pressure) 

  ·  = showing large individual differences 

  THEREFORE disposition MUST play a role 

  BECAUSE all Ps were in the same situation and yet they behaved differently