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Advantages
- reliable - easily repeated by Asch to test further for other variables and for other psychologists to use to prove or disprove his findings
- some participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group linking to the idea of normative social influence and demonstrating compliance
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Disadvantages
- possible temporal validity because during the time at which the study was conducted conformity was particularly high in USA
- idea of temporal validity further shown as other research has found very different results to Asch's findings where conformity was much lower
- most replicas of Asch's study used 2-4 participants as a majority and it is questionable as to whether or not this constitutes a real majority
- lack of mundane realism - evaluation of length of lines isn't an everyday task and there was also nothing riding on the outcome so the study may not demonstrate real life conformity
- does not support the idea of conformity fully as the results of the study show 2/3 of people went against the majority - Asch believed that while people conform people still show independent thought
- deception made informed consent not possible, however it is arguable that it was necessary for accurate results even though it may have resulted in embarrassment for the participant when the true aims were revealed but there was a debrief and the effects were judged to be minimal and short-term
- beta bias as females were not used and the results simply generalised to them believing the results would not differ
- evidence for cultural differences - analysis of Asch type studies found average conformity to be 31%, with individualist cultures having 25% and collectivist cultures having larger (37%) average rates, suggesting there are more than just the factors Asch investigated that affect conformity
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