ASCH'S research in conformity

• Conformity


  The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms
• Asch's study on conformity


  1. Used 123 American male students

  2. Participants were in groups of 6-8 confederates

  3. Confederates consistently gave the wrong answer

  4. Participants were presented with a standard line card and comparison line card and asked to match the standard line to the comparison line

  5. One true participant in each group, rest were confederates

  6. Confederates gave the wrong answer in 12/18 of the trials

  7. Participants were told they were taking part in a perception study

  8. Asch found that participants conformed 36.8% of the critical trials where confederates gave all the wrong answers

  9. 75% of participants conformed at least once
• Factors affecting conformity in Asch's study


  • Group size - conformity increased with group size up to 3 confederates, then stayed the same
  • Unanimity - presence of a dissenting confederate decreased conformity levels, as it allowed participants to be free and behave independently
  • Task difficulty - conformity increased when the task was more difficult
• Asch's conformity study


  • High internal validity due to controlled laboratory experiment
  • Low ecological validity due to artificial task
• Asch's sample consisted of only male, American students
• Asch's study was conducted in an individualist culture (US)

  Degree of conformity would be higher in collectivist cultures
• Asch's study was conducted with male participants


  Conformity may differ in women compared to men
• Perrin and Spencer (1980) replicated Asch's experiment on a sample of UK Engineering students and found only one participant conformed across 396 trials
• Perrin and Spencer's failed replication


  Suggests Asch's findings were limited to the United States population in the 1950s
• Perrin and Spencer's failed replication


  May be due to greater expertise and confidence of Engineering students
• Deception


  Participants were deceived about the character of the study and the other group members
• Deception was necessary to conduct the study as participants wouldn't conform if they knew the study was about conformity
• Lack of protection from harm


  Participants experienced distress, fear of rejection, and anxiety related to pressure to conform
• Participants were debriefed after the experiment and took part in an interview about their experience, which could reduce their distress