“Discuss Asch’s research and variations in conformity.”
Solomon Asch’s research was dedicated into investigating the potential extent to which
people will conform to the opinion of others in an unambiguous situation. 123 American men
were tested, each in a group with other apparent participants that were in reality
confederates. The participants were instructed to identify which comparison line on one card
matched with the standard line on another card, and report this out loud. Within the critical
condition, the confederates all clearly identified the wrong line to match. It was found that
genuine participants conformed to this incorrect answer 36.8% of the time.
Asch was interested in the extent to which changing certain variables would affect this
baseline conformity percentage. The first variable he conducted was changing the group size,
by increasing the number of participants that were present. Asch identified a curvilinear
relationship, where increasing the number of confederates increased the conformity rate to a
certain extent, upon which the addition of extra confederates had no effect. The addition of 3
confederates caused conformity to rise to 31.8%. This suggests that people are very sensitive
to the views of other because just only a few confederates were necessary to significantly
sway their opinions, illustrating the effect that majority opinion can have. The second
variable investigated was unanimity, where Asch introduced a non-conforming dissenter
who broke the unanimity between the confederates. It was found that the introduction of this
dissenter reduced conformity to less than 1/4th of the level which it originally was. The
presence of the dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to act more independently,
by providing social support. The final variable that Asch investigated was task difficulty. He
increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the comparison and standard line
more similar- it was found, as a result of this, that conformity increased. This illustrates the
potential effect that informational social influence may have on conformity.
A strength of Asch’s research is that it is supported by further research studies. For instance,
Lucas et al found that participants were significantly more likely to conform when
completing difficult math tasks opposed to easier math tasks, due to increased ambiguity of
the situation, illustrating ISI. This aligns with the research findings from Asch’s difficulty
variation, and therefore increases the internal validity of the claims made by Asch in this
variation.
However, the use of research such as Lucas et al’s findings to support the claims made by
Asch may be flawed. For instance, such a study considered the effect that a person’s own
perception on their math ability affected the results. Asch fails to consider the effect that
disposition may have on conformity, instead isolating and studying only the situational
variables known to affect conformity. Therefore, Asch’s research and resulting findings may
only partially explain conformity.
However, a limitation of Asch’s research is that it was a highly artificial task. Participants
were aware that they were in a highly artificial research situation, and alongside this the task
of identifying lines was trivial and therefore there appeared to be no reason to not conform.
Therefore, participants may have been significantly affected by demand characteristics and
the studies may not apply to real-life situations, where conformity may have important
consequences unlike identifying line size.
Another limitation of Asch’s research is the sample that he used to generate results from. The
usage of a male-only sample reduces the applicability of the findings to females, from taking
an androcentric approach to the research. Similarly, the use of an only American sample
means that the results are skewed as America is a highly individualistic culture- collectivist
cultures have been suggested to be likely to generate different results, due to the concern for
the group needs. Therefore, the percentages of conformity generated by Asch may not be
Solomon Asch’s research was dedicated into investigating the potential extent to which
people will conform to the opinion of others in an unambiguous situation. 123 American men
were tested, each in a group with other apparent participants that were in reality
confederates. The participants were instructed to identify which comparison line on one card
matched with the standard line on another card, and report this out loud. Within the critical
condition, the confederates all clearly identified the wrong line to match. It was found that
genuine participants conformed to this incorrect answer 36.8% of the time.
Asch was interested in the extent to which changing certain variables would affect this
baseline conformity percentage. The first variable he conducted was changing the group size,
by increasing the number of participants that were present. Asch identified a curvilinear
relationship, where increasing the number of confederates increased the conformity rate to a
certain extent, upon which the addition of extra confederates had no effect. The addition of 3
confederates caused conformity to rise to 31.8%. This suggests that people are very sensitive
to the views of other because just only a few confederates were necessary to significantly
sway their opinions, illustrating the effect that majority opinion can have. The second
variable investigated was unanimity, where Asch introduced a non-conforming dissenter
who broke the unanimity between the confederates. It was found that the introduction of this
dissenter reduced conformity to less than 1/4th of the level which it originally was. The
presence of the dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to act more independently,
by providing social support. The final variable that Asch investigated was task difficulty. He
increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the comparison and standard line
more similar- it was found, as a result of this, that conformity increased. This illustrates the
potential effect that informational social influence may have on conformity.
A strength of Asch’s research is that it is supported by further research studies. For instance,
Lucas et al found that participants were significantly more likely to conform when
completing difficult math tasks opposed to easier math tasks, due to increased ambiguity of
the situation, illustrating ISI. This aligns with the research findings from Asch’s difficulty
variation, and therefore increases the internal validity of the claims made by Asch in this
variation.
However, the use of research such as Lucas et al’s findings to support the claims made by
Asch may be flawed. For instance, such a study considered the effect that a person’s own
perception on their math ability affected the results. Asch fails to consider the effect that
disposition may have on conformity, instead isolating and studying only the situational
variables known to affect conformity. Therefore, Asch’s research and resulting findings may
only partially explain conformity.
However, a limitation of Asch’s research is that it was a highly artificial task. Participants
were aware that they were in a highly artificial research situation, and alongside this the task
of identifying lines was trivial and therefore there appeared to be no reason to not conform.
Therefore, participants may have been significantly affected by demand characteristics and
the studies may not apply to real-life situations, where conformity may have important
consequences unlike identifying line size.
Another limitation of Asch’s research is the sample that he used to generate results from. The
usage of a male-only sample reduces the applicability of the findings to females, from taking
an androcentric approach to the research. Similarly, the use of an only American sample
means that the results are skewed as America is a highly individualistic culture- collectivist
cultures have been suggested to be likely to generate different results, due to the concern for
the group needs. Therefore, the percentages of conformity generated by Asch may not be
