asch

• research into conformity: Asch- conformity to authority, 1951- naïve ppts gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time- 25% of the ppts never gave the wrong answer but 75% conformed at least once.- most participants conformed to avoid rejection (NSI) and continued to privately trust their own opinion (compliance).
• Variables affecting conformity

  • Group size
  • Unanimity
  • Task difficulty
• Group size

  Number of confederates ranged between 1 and 15
• Group size


  • With 2 confederates conformity was 13.6%
  • With 3 it rose to 31.8%
  • Adding more confederates made little difference
• Unanimity

  Asch introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate that was dissenting but also inaccurate
• Presence of a dissenting confederate

  Reduced the conformity, on average 25%
• Having a dissenter

  Allowed a naive participant to behave more independently
• Task difficulty

  Asch made the line judging task harder by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length
• Task becoming more difficult

  Conformity increased, informational social influence (ISI) plays a greater role
• Situation becoming more ambiguous

  People are more likely to conform and look for others for guidance and assume that they are right
• limitation

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  may be representative of the times

  • Perrin and Spencer (1980)- found just one conforming response in 396 trials. participants (UK engineering students) felt more confident in measuring lines then Asch's original group, so conformed less
  • the 1950s in America were a conformist time and people may be less likely to conform in subsequent decades.
  • the Asch effect is not consistent over time so is not an enduring feature of human behaviour.
• a second limitation

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  the situation and task were artificial

  • participants could have known they were in a study so may have responded to demand characteristics.
  • the line task was trivial so there was no reason to not conform. also the naïve participants were in a group but not like groups found in every day life.
  • findings do not generalise to every day situations where consequences of conformity are important and where we interact with groups more directly.
• Another limitation

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  findings only apply to certain groups

  • Only men were included in the original study. Neto (1995) suggested that women might be more conformist because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
  • participants were from the use which is an individualist culture. smith and bond suggest that conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures which are more concerned about group needs.
  • this suggests that conformity may be higher than Asch originally found and his findings could be limited to American men.
• Another limitation

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  findings only apply to certain situations

  • Participants answered out loud and were with a group of strangers they may have wanted to impress- could lead to conformity being higher than usual.
  • Williams and Sogon (1984) found conformity was higher when the majority were friends rather tan strangers.
  • therefore the Asch effect varies depending on circumstances
• Ethical issues

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  • Naïve participants were deceived. they thought the others in the procedure were genuine
  • This ethical cost should be weighted against the benefits of the study
  • The main benefit was highlighting peoples susceptibility to group conformity and the variables affecting it.