evaluation

• the study was artifical therefore the findings cannot be generalised to real-world situations especially in those where the consequence of conformity might be important
• a limitation is that only American men were used in the study so it is not representative of the whole population and cannot be generalised
• other research suggests that women may be more conformist due to their concerns of being socially accepted
• asch study tells us little about conformity in women and some cultures
• a strength is support from other studies for the effect of difficulty
• supporting studies : Todd Lucas (2006) found that participants conformed more often when the maths questions were more difficult which shows that asch was correct in claiming that difficulty is one variable that affects conformity