Asch - Research into Conformity

• Procedure

  Ppts were asked to judge which of the 3 lines were equal in length. There was only 1 ppt per trial (18 trials). 12/18 trials all confederates were told to give the wrong answer out loud. Real ppt was seated towards end so they could hear everyones' answers.
• How conformity was measured - the extent to which ppt would conform to give an incorrect answer in an unambiguous situation (whether they agreed that the incorrect line matched the comparison)
• To be confident they were measuring conformity - there was a control condition where there were no confederates as there were 0% incorrect responses hence no conformity occurred.
• Findings -

  average conformity rate (ppts agreed w/ the incorrect majority answer) was 36.8%

  yet, there was a large individual difference as 75% of ppts conformed at least once but 25% didn't conform at all
• Aim- conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person in an unambiguous situation
• Method - Lab experiment
• Sample - 123 American Males
• Materials - Line comparison test, ppts told it was a visual perception test (deceived)
• Conclusion - following the experiment, Asch interviewed ppts + found reasons for conformity: included to avoid ridicule, having doubts about own judgement or actually believing that the others were right
• Evaluation (A03)

  strength:

  standardised procedure - Bond + Smith (meta-analysis) -> 17 countries studied conformity using Asch's paradigm. Reliability of findings can be found if it's easy to replicate. Its an accepted way of studying conformity so reliability can be established as results have been consistent
• Evaluation (A03) Weakness 1: PT 1

  Artificiality of task - judging lengths of lines isn't an important task + could be argued that ppts didn't feel strongly about it. If task involved a moral/ethical judgement the majority may have less of an effect (reduces ecological validity as results may not reflect how real world conformity operates)
• Evaluation (A03) Weakness 1: PT 2

  Also, could be demand characteristics as the task is easy, ppts might work out the aim and say the wrong answer to fulfill the aim. An issue as Asch was not measuring conformity so conclusions are invalid. Yet, Asch argued that signs of stress demonstrated from real ppts showed they believed the situation was true.