Asch's Variables

• What is group size?

  • Research indicates conformity rates increase as the size of the majority increases
  • But their comes a point where further increases in the size of the majority doesn’t lead to further increases in conformity (plateaus)
  • Asch found that with 3 confederates conformity rate was 31.8% but adding one more confederate only increased this to 35% with no further increases as more confederates were added up to 15
• What is unanimity?

  • Unanimity = the extent to which the majority group agree with each other
  • When the majority influence is not unanimous (don’t agree with each other) conformity decreases
  • Asch found that the presence of one confederate who disagreed with the majority (gave a different answer to the other confederates) reduced conformity to 5.5%
• What is task difficulty?

  • When task difficulty increases conformity increases as the right answer becomes less obvious thus confidence in our own judgement tends to drop
  • Asch increased the task difficulty by making comparison lines more similar in length so the correct answer was less obvious. When he did this, PPs were more likely to conform demonstrating the effect of task difficulty on conformity
• What is a strength?

  • There is supporting research
  • Lucas et al asked students to answer maths questions ranging from easy to difficult
  • Found that students were more likely to give the wrong answer (and conform to the majority) when questions were difficult rather than easy. This was especially true for students who rated their maths ability as poor
  • This supports Asch’s findings - shows that task difficulty increasing = conformity increasing
  • Also, if students find a task harder due to lack of ability this also increases levels of conformity
  • This validates Asch’s findings
• How is artificiality a weakness?

  • A weakness of Asch’s research is that it is artificial
  • Task of matching lines has little relevance to and is inconsequential compared to real life situations involving group pressure (e.g. deciding a verdict on a jury)
  • Someone may have conformed in the non-consequential lab setting but be more likely to resist group pressure if their choices have real consequences
  • Asch’s study may only explain conformity in special circumstances that aren't similar to real life and are inconsequential
  • Thus Asch’s research decreases in ecological validity
• How is ethics a weakness?

  • A weakness of Asch’s research is that it breaks ethical guidelines
  • The real participants could not provide fully informed consent as they were deceived about the aim of the study - in order to obtain valid results they were told it was investigating visual perception rather than conformity
  • The real PPs also thought that the other people involved in the study were genuine participants like themselves when they were in reality confederates told to purposefully give the wrong answer on clinical trials
  • As Asch’s research breaks ethical guidelines it reduces in credibility