Asch's Line Study

Evaluation

Asch's ambiguous line study shows support for normative social influence, the motivational force to be liked and accepted. It is a lab study, meaning it is reliable and there is little chance of extraneous variables. Though this also means that it lacks external validity and may not be applicable to the outside world. There are also some ethical issues with the study, due to the participants being deceived (they were told it was a sight test), though this could be reduced by debriefing at the end of the research. A positive of this deception is that it means there is little chance for demand characteristics. Overall, the study does support normative social influence but further research should be completed in a natural setting to determine if this is true in real-life situations.