Conformity: Asch research

•Asch wanted to find out:• To what extent does group pressure

change people’s opinions, attitudes, and beliefs.•What specific aspects of the group were

the most important in influencing the individual: the size of the majority or its unanimity.

Conformity: Asch research

• To find out Asch conducted carefully controlled Lab experiments.• He designed a repeated measures experiment that

used ambiguous stimuli to measure the influence of a majority on an individual leading to a change of perception.• These experiments have become known as the ‘Line

experiments’.

Asch: Research

Complete the key study table.

Asch variations•Asch used the line technique to investigate what

led to an increase or decrease in conformity.

•He tested the following variables:

•The size of the majority

•Social support (unanimity)

•Task difficulty

Size of the majority

What does this

graph show?

1. Size of the group• Asch found that conformity

tends to increase as the size of the group increases

• With one other confederate in the group, conformity was 3% with two others it increased to 13% and with three or more it was around 32%

• He found little changed in conformity once the group size reached 4-5

2. Unanimity

•Asch was interested in whether social support would affect the true participants conforming behaviour.

•He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates.

•This led to reduced conformity

•Enabled the real participant to behave more independently

3. Task Difficulty•Asch made the line-judging

task more difficult.•When the comparison lines

(e.g. A,B. C) were made more similar in length, it was harder to judge the correct answer

•Conformity increased under these conditions

Evaluation: strengths• Asch line experiments were controlled lab

experiments.

• Asch was able to test specific variables that increased or decreased conformity.

• Standardised procedures and instructions meant the line experiments could be replicated.

• The line experiments became the standard research ‘paradigm’.

Evaluation: limitationsA child of its time

• Perrin and Spencer (1981) carried out Asch’s study 25 years later with engineering students and only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials.

Artificial situations and task

• Participants knew they were taking part in research and so may have simply displayed demand characteristics.

Limited application of findings

• Only men were tested and therefore results are not generalisable to women. Also Asch carried out research in the USA, an individualistic culture

Evaluation: limitations

Individualistic culture

• Where people prioritise standing out as an individual over fitting in as a group member – for example, the UK and USA

Collectivist culture

• Where people prioritise group loyalty, belonging and fitting into a group over standing out as an individual – for example, India and Brazil

The lowest rate of conformity (14%) was found with Belgian students, and the highest

(58%) with Indian teachers in Fiji

EthicsAsch’s research raised some ethical issues.

•He deceived the participants.

•He did not get fully informed consent.

•Some participants found the situation they were put in stressful.

Asch dealt with these ethical issues:

•He did debrief the participants.

•The level of stress was low.

•The research was important.