Aim: asch: set out to investigate how people respond to group pressure: he wanted to study conformity. He chose to test this in a situation where the answer was clearly wrong to see if even then people are influenced by what others think.

Method: the participants were 123 American male students. They are often referred to as naïve participants because they did not know the aims of the study. There were other students involved in the study, described as confederates because they were employed by the researcher to play a particular role.

Each naive participant was tested with a group of between six and eight confederates, the naive participant thought the others were real participants. All the men sat round a table. The naive participant was always near the end of the semi circle.

The men were shown two large cards, one with a single black standard line and another card with three comparison lines.

On each trial each man starting from the left was asked to say whether line A B or C matches the standard line X

In total there were 18 trials. On the first few trials the confederates have correct answers but then on 12 critical trials confederates selected the same wrong answers

Results: on the 12 critical trials the naive participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time. N other words they agreed with the wrong answer given by the confederates.

There were considerable individual differences: 25% of the participants never have a wrong answer which means that 75% conformed at least once. A few participants conformed most of the time.

Conclusions: these results show that people are influenced by group pressure even when involved in a task that has a clear cut answer. This results have been called the asch effect - the extent to which people conform even in an unambiguous situation, when the answer is clearly wrong.

However, Asch also concluded that the results show a high level of independence. Group pressure is very strong but nevertheless the majority of the participants went against the group opinion. He concludes that this is clear evidence of how people can resist the pressure to conform.

Evaluation: child of the times

Point: one weakness is that the results may only be relevant to 1950’s America

Explanation: the 1950’s were a particularly conformist time in America. The government was dominated by McCarthyism - a movement lead by senator McCarthy which aimed to identify and ostracise anyone with communist tendencies. This meant that people were very scared to behave differently from the majority. Another study conducted by Stephen Perrin and Christopher Spencer in 1980 in the uk found just one conforming response in 396 trials.

This suggests that the asch effect is not consistent over time - it may only be apparent in certain conditions.

Evaluation: an artificial task

Point: another weakness of this research is that the task and situation are rather artificial

Explanation: being asked to budge the length of a line with a group of strangers doesn’t reflect the everyday situations where people conform. It was a rather trivial task and there was no particular reason why people would not conform. It might be that people are less willing to conform when the consequences are a bit more important. Also, even though the naive participants were in a group, there groups were not like being in a group of friends

This means that the results may not generalise to everyday situations where the consequences or conformity are probably more important.

Evaluation: cultural differences

Point: a further weakness is that asch research is more reflective of conformity in individualist cultures like America and the uk

Explanation: psychologists make a distinction between cultures that are focused on the individual (called individualist states) where the most important aim in life is to achieve your potential. For example, when it comes to finding a life partner; the most important thing is to select a person who matches your own personality.

In contrast there are other cultures that focus much more on the community (called collectivist cultures). People put family and group needs first and, when choosing a partner, aim to find someone approved of by their family. Research has shown that conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (such as china) produce higher conformity rates. This makes sense because such cultures are more oriented to group needs. (Bond and smith 1996)

This means that asch’s findings are probably less reflective of conformity in collectivist cultures.