Evaluation

• Artificial situation and task

  • Limitation
  • Demand characteristics
  • No reason not to conform
  • Groups did not resemble groups that we experience in everyday life; "groups weren't very groupy" - Fiske
• Limited application

  • Limitation
  • Participants were all American men
  • Women may be more conformist, possibly because they may be more concerned about social relationships and being accepted - Neto
  • The US is an individualist culture (people are more concerned about themselves than their social group)
  • Conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures (e.g. China)
• Research support

  • Support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
  • Todd Lucas et al asked their participants to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths questions. Participants were given answers from three other students (not actually real).
  • The participants conformed more often when the problems were harder.
  • This shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity
• Counterpoint to Lucas et al

  • Lucas et al's study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested
  • Participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence
  • This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables
• Ethical issues

  • The naïve participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved in the procedure were ask genuine participants like themselves.
  • However, it is worth bearing in mind that this ethical cost should be weighed up against the benefits gained from the study