conformity asch

• Who were his participants?

  123 male American college students
• What was the aim of Asch's line study?

  To investigate whether individuals would conform to a majority view, even when it was obviously incorrect.
• What was the procedure of Asch's line study?

  Participants were shown a line and asked to choose the matching line from a group of three options. They were in a group with confederates who gave wrong answers, and the participant’s response was recorded.
• What was the result of Asch's study?

  75% of participants conformed at least once, giving an obviously incorrect answer to match the majority. 25% never conformed.
• What year was Asch's research done in?

  1951 - during the era of McCarthyism in America
• A limitation of Asch’s research is that it lacks temporal validity because it was conducted during a period of intense social pressure, specifically during McCarthyism in the 1950s. During this time, there was a strong fear of dissent and a heightened pressure to conform to societal norms, especially in the United States. This may have led to higher levels of conformity than would be found in more recent times. This idea is supported by Perrin and Spencer’s 1980s replication of Asch’s study in the UK, where they found much lower levels of conformity. In their version, only 1 in 396 trials resulted in conformity, suggesting that cultural and historical context plays a significant role in conformity rates. Therefore, Asch’s study may not be applicable to contemporary society, as it was conducted in a specific historical context that influenced participants' behaviour.
• What does his research lack?

  temporal validity
• Why does his study lack temporal validity?

  it was conducted during a period of intense social pressure, specifically during McCarthyism in the 1950s. During this time, there was a strong fear of dissent and a heightened pressure to conform to societal norms, especially in the United States.
• Who replicated his study in the 1980s?

  Perrin and Spencer. Found only 1 in 396 trials resulted in conformity.
• A limitation of Asch’s research is that it has low population validity due to its culture bias. The study only used 123 male college students, meaning the results can’t be easily generalised to women or people from different cultural backgrounds. A study by Smith and Bond (1993) showed that people from collectivist cultures are more likely to conform than people from individualistic cultures. This suggests that Asch’s study may not reflect how all groups behave in real-life situations, which reduces its external validity. Therefore, the study is culturally biased and doesn’t account for the different ways conformity might work across various groups.
• What kind of validity does Asch's research lack?

  population validity
• Why does his study lack population validity?

  Used 123 male American college students. Eagly and Carli found that women conform more and Smith and bond found that collectivist cultures are more conformist.
• A limitation of Asch’s study is that it lacks mundane realism, meaning it doesn't reflect real-life situations where people conform. In the study, participants were asked to complete a simple task of identifying which line matched the length of another, which is not something people typically encounter in everyday life. The artificial nature of this task makes it unlikely that the results accurately represent how people conform in more natural settings. In real-life situations, people often conform for social or emotional reasons, not just because of an obvious, simple task like in Asch’s study. This lack of realism means that the findings may not be applicable to real-world scenarios, reducing the ecological validity of the study. Therefore, while the study shows how people might conform in a lab setting, it doesn't necessarily tell us much about conformity in everyday life.
• What is a limitation of Asch's study related to the task participants were asked to perform?

  The study lacks mundane realism because the task of matching line lengths is artificial and doesn't reflect real-life situations.
• How does the artificial nature of Asch's task affect its application to real-world conformity?

  Because the task is overly simplistic, the study's findings may not accurately represent how conformity occurs in everyday life.
• What is an example of real-life situations where conformity is more complex than in Asch's study?

  Conformity in situations like following fashion trends or agreeing with a group’s opinion, which involve social pressures and personal beliefs.
• What were Asch's variables?

  Group size, unanimity and task difficulty
• How did group size affect conformity in Asch's study?

  Asch found that conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point. With 3 confederates, conformity reached around 30%, and adding more confederates did not significantly increase conformity.
• What happens to conformity when unanimity is broken in Asch's study?

  When one confederate gave a different answer from the majority (breaking unanimity), conformity decreased significantly, dropping to around 5.5%.
• How did task difficulty influence conformity in Asch's study?

  Asch found that when the task was made more difficult (e.g., the lines were more similar in length), conformity increased, as participants were more likely to rely on others for guidance.
• What percentage of participants conformed when the group size was 3 in Asch’s study?

  Around 30% of participants conformed when the group size was 3 confederates, showing the significant effect of group size on conformity.
• What happened when there was a dissenter?

  Conformity dropped to 10%
• What effect did increasing the task difficulty have on conformity in Asch’s study?

  As task difficulty increased, conformity rates increased, as participants were more uncertain and more likely to conform to others' answers.
• What is the acronym for the variables?

  TUG. Task difficulty, unanimity and group size.