Conformity: Asch's research

• key study 1: procedure

  123 American male students. each tested individually with a group of between six and eight confederates. on each trial, participants identified the length of a standard line. on the first few trials confederates gave correct answers but then all selected the same wrong answers. each participant completed 18 trials. on 12 'critical trials; confederates gave the wrong answer.
• key study 1: findings

  the naive participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time. this shows a high level of conformity, called the Asch effect- the extent to which people conform even in an unambiguous situation.
• key study 1: individual differences

  25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer, so 75% conformed at least once. a few participants conformed most of the time.
• key study 1: why did most participants conform?

  most participants said they conformed to avoid rejection (normative social influence) and continued to privately to trust their own opinions (compliance, going along with others publicly, but not privately).
• key study 2: variables affecting conformity, group size

  procedure: the number of confederates varied between 1 and 15.

  findings: with two confederates, conformity to the wrong answer was 13.6%, with three it rose to 31.8%. adding any more confederates made little difference.
• what variables did Asch assess in his second study?

  group size, unanimity and task difficulty.
• key study 2: variables affecting conformity, unanimity

  procedure: asch introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate who was dissenting but inaccurate.

  findings: the presence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity, whether the dissenter was giving the right or wrong answer. the figure was, on average, 25% wrong answers. having a dissenter enabled a naive participant to behave more independently.
• key study 2: variables affecting conformity, task difficulty

  procedure: asch made the line-judging task harder by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length.

  findings: conformity increased when the task was more difficult. so informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and assume they are right.
• limitation of Asch: findings may be a 'child of the times'

  Perrin and Spencer found just one conforming response in 396 trials. participants (UK engineering students) felt more confident measuring lines than Asch's original sample, so were less conformist. also, the 1950s were a conformist time in America and people might 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.
• limitation of Asch: findings only apply to certain groups


  only men were tested by Asch. Neto suggested that women might one more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships (and being accepted). participants were from the USA, an individualist culture. smith and bond suggest that conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures (e.g. china) which are more concerned with group needs. this suggests that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found; his findings may be limited to American men.
• what is an individualist culture?

  people are more concerned with themselves than their social group.
• ethical issues associated with Asch's research

  naive participants were deceived. they thought the others in the procedure (confederates) were genuine. but this ethical cost should be weighed against the benefits of the study. the main benefit was highlighting people's susceptibility to group conformity and the variables affecting it.
• limitation: findings only apply to certain situations

  participants answered out loud and were with a group of strangers they wanted to impress. conformity could be higher than usual. but Williams and sogon found conformity was higher when the majority were friends rather than strangers. therefore the Asch effect varies depending on circumstances.