Asch’s baseline study

Asch's aim:
To see if participants would stick to their beliefs, or cave into pressure of majority and…

give wrong answer

Procedure:
123 male US undergraduates
6-8 people, 1 naïve participant, rest confederates
3 lines different length + match line.
Participant always answered…
12/18 trials- confederates gave same incorrect answer

second to last

Findings:
….% conformed on 12 critical trials
..% never conformed
.% conformed on all 12 trials

36.8%, 25%, 5%

Asch's variations-
Task difficulty:
more difficult as…
conformity rate increased due to… as participants would…

lines closer in length, isi, look to others for guidance

Asch's variations-
Unanimity:
dissenting confederate decreased conformity to 5.5% even if dissenter gave wrong answer
the presence of someone going against the majority increases the…

participants confidence to also go against the majority

Asch's variations-
Group size:
conformity was low until group size 3 (32%)
effect of group size increasing plateaued after 3 bigger groups as may indicate collusion (define?)

participants may have got suspicious

AO3- Evaluation: limitation
Lacks temporal validity
Asch's study= 1956- McCarthyism- anti communist period- people scared to go against majority, more likely to conform
Society's changed since the 50's, people= less conforming today
Therefore, Asch's research may not…

reflect conformity today

AO3- Evaluation: limitation
Cannot be generalised to reflect everyday life, lacking mundane realism.
No consequences if wrong answer.
Consequences in real life which affect conformity. e.g smoking underage
Fiske (2014) - Asch's group doesn't resemble groups in real life e.g friends
Therefore, Asch's conformity rates may not reflect true rates, so difficult for findings to be…

generalised to everyday situations of conformity

AO3- Evaluation: limitation
Issues with the sample
Only American male undergraduates. - Cultural differences in conformity
Smith ( 2006) conformity rate for individualistic cultures (Europe/usa)
= 25%, collectivist = 37%- conformity higher in collectivist
Issue- may be overlooking important cultural differences in conformity.
Therefore, we cannot accurately… as they… due to nature of sample,…

generalise Asch's findings, only reflect conformity in western cultures, reducing external validity of research

AO3- Evaluation: limitation
Issues determining effect of group size
Bond (2005)- limited range of group sizes.
All studies use majority size 3. None except Asch used greater than 9.
This shows we know little about effect of larger majority sizes on conformity rates.
Therefore, cannot be sure Asch's group size findings can be used on larger scale in real world situations e.g…

workplaces, crowds, organisations