Ashe

• Study Design


  • Laboratory experiment with control over possible extraneous variables and standardized procedures so study could be replicated
  • Participants were male American college students
• Method


  1. Groups of 7-9 people were shown a group of line with a standard line and 3 other comparison lines

  2. Participants were asked to say out loud which comparison line was the closest in length to the standard line

  3. The correct answer was always clear

  4. There was only one real participant in the group and the rest were confederates who had been told to give the wrong answer for 12/18 sets of lines

  5. The real participant was always the last person so he heard everyone responces before he gave his judgement so there was more pressure to conform to the wrong majority

  6. He was told that the aim of the study was to investigate visual judgement
• Asch recorded


  Whether they gave the correct answer or incorrect answer to conform with the rest of the group
• Asch's study


  • Demonstrates the extent in which people conform in social situations
  • When people did the line task alone the error rate was less than 1%
  • In a group setting the error rate rose to 37%
• Asch's study


  1. Lab experiment

  2. High control over extraneous variables

  3. Altered factors to see how they influenced conformity rates

  4. Conformity rates rose when he increased the number of people in majority answer by 3

  5. Conformity rates rose when the task was made more difficult when the lines were closer together

  6. Conformity rates fell when the answer could be written instead of said out loud (anonymity)
• Asch's study


  • Identified some key social factors which affect conformity
• Laboratory setting


  Not a natural situation for participants, may have caused them to act differently than in everyday setting
• Asch's study has low ecological validity and findings may not generalise to other settings
• Matching line lengths is a trivial task with no personal significance to people
• Conformity in real life is more likely to be about decisions that are important to us like clothes that we wear
• Results may not reflect how people respond in real life
• The participants were American
• The USA as well as the UK are individualistic countries which place emphasis on the needs of the individual
• Collectivistic countries like China place emphasis on needs of a group
• Research has shown that people from collectivistic countries are more likely to conform
• The results of the study cannot be generalised to all as the culture we live in influences conformity levels