Asch's line conformity study

• Asch's study was a laboratory experiment which had high levels of control over extraneous variables and all procedures were standardised to ensure the experiment could be replicated easily
• The participants in Asch's study were 50 white American male students
• Asch's study - procedure:

  • participants looked at 2 cards, one card had 1 vertical lines and the other had 3 vertical lines of different lengths
  • they each called out in turn which of the 3 lines was the same length as the individual line on a separate card
  • real participant called out their answers second to last
  • all confederates unanimously gave the wrong answers, verbally out loud
• Asch's study - results:

  • 75% of participants conformed
  • 25% of participants never conformed - but experienced uncomfortability and tensions with the group
  • 5% conformed to all 12 wrong answers
• Asch's study - EVAL:

  • lacks ecological validity - artificial task does not represent real life experiences - therefore results cannot be generalised to the wider general target population beyond the lab
  • ethnocentric - biased sample - white American males - results could be due to cultural norms; may differ for different types of people or people in different parts of the world - results cannot be generalised
  • ethical issues - protection from psychological harm - embarrassment/group tensions; deception - told the study was about memory, didn't know the other participants were confederates
• Asch's study - studies to EVALUATE

  Eagly (1987) - gender

  
  

  Eagly (1987) believed that men and women show different levels of conformity because of their different social roles.

  Women are more likely to conform because they don't like group conflict.

  Men are less likely to conform because they are expected to show independence and assertiveness.
• Research findings (social support) - Asch (1951)

  • In Asch's (1951) line judgement task, if the dissenter answered correctly from the start of the study, conformity levels dropped from 32% to 5.5%.
  • If the dissenter answered correctly later in the study, conformity levels dropped to 8.5%. This shows that social support received earlier is more effective than support received later.
• Research findings (size of the majority group) - Asch 1956

  one participant and one confederate = low conformity

  two confederates - 13%

  three confederates - 32%

  HOWEVER, adding up to 15 extra confederates had no further effect on conformity