Conformity: Asch's Research - Evaluation

A child of its time- Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch's study with engineering students in the UK. Only one student conformed in 396 trials. This may be due to the fact that engineering students would have felt more confident about mneasuring lines. However, it may also be because it was an extremely conformist time in the America in the 1950s.Therefore this is a limitation as it suggests that the Asch effect is not consistent across situations and time

Artificial situation and task-  demand characteristics may have occured. Also, the groups didn't really resemble groups that were part of everyday life; Fiske said that 'Asch's groups were not very groupy'.Therefore this is a limitation because it means that the findings can not be generalised to everyday situations

Limited application of findings- Neto suggested that women might be more conformist because they are more concerned about social relationships. Also, the study was conducted in an individualist culture (United States), whereas similar conformity studies conducted in collectivisrt cultures (e.g. China) found that conformity rates were higher. Therefore this is a limitation because his findings may only apply to American men as he did not take into gender and cultural differences into account