conformity asch research

• Asch’s baseline procedure

  Asch used a procedure to test to what extent people conform due to others opinions. The procedure of this experiment was that he had one real pps and a number of confederates. He had done standard comparison lines. Each of the pps saw the line to compare to and the three lines of different lengths. All of the confederates gave an incorrect answer and he did this to see if that would change the real pps answer even if they thought they were correct. 

  Variables
• Group sizeHe varied the group size by increasing and decreasing it. When the group size of the group was below 3 the levels of conformity decreased, but when the group size was 3 or above the levels of conformity increased.
• Unanimity

  He had the normal confederates, the real pp and a non conforming person. This had decreased the levels of conformity. This happened when the real pp felt more independent as the dissenter gave a separate answer to the confederates. 

  Task difficulty

  He did this by making the task more ambiguous by making all of the comparison lines a similar length to make it more difficult to choose the same line to the standard line. This had increased the levels of conformity as we tend to look for guidance when the questions are harder ISI
• limitation is that the task and situation was artificial.  This is because the pps knew that they were taking part in the experiment and they may have simply done what was expected (demand characteristics). The task of identifying lines was trivial therefore there was no reason not to conform. Fiske 2014  claims that the groups weren’t very groupy as they would not be ensemble in everyday life. This means the findings do not generalise to the real world, especially those where the consequences of conformity can be important.
• limitation is that the candidates were all American men. Neto 2995 suggests women are more conformist as they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted.  It only mainly generalises across individualistic cultures such as America. These individualistic cultures are more about themselves than others. Bond and Smith 1996 claim more collectivist cultures  such as China will conform more as they value social groups more than individualism. This means Asch’s research tells us little about women and some cultures within conformity.
• strength is that other studies support it. Lucas 2006 asked pps hard and easy maths questions. Pps were given 3 answers by 3 students who were not real. The harder questions which are harder allowed the pps to conform more. This shows that Asch was right in claiming task difficulty is a variable in conformity.
• But on the other hand, conformity is more complex than Asch explained as individual factors play a part such as confidence, as the pps who had more confidence in maths were less likely to conform on the harder problems. This shows that an individual level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables. But Asch did not research these individual level factors.