Research took place in a particular period of US history when conformity rates were high. Perrin and Spencer attempted to repeat Aschs study in the 1980s using students. In their intitial study they obtained only one conforming response out of 396 trials.
In a subsequent study they used youths on probabtion and probabtion officers as the confederates.
They found similar conformity levels to Aschs Study, which confirms that conformity is more likely if the perceived costs of not conforming are high, which would have been the case during the McCarthy era in the 1950s.
This therefore reduces the validity, as the findings were not consistent over time.
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Cultural differences in conformity:
Smith et al analysed the results of Asch-type studies across a number of different cultures.
Average conformity rate for individualistic cultures was about 25%, whereas for collectivist was much higher at 37%.
Markus and Kitayama suggest that a higher level of conformity arises in collectivist cultures because it is viewed more favourably.
This reduces the validity of Aschs research as it cannot be generalised to the whole population due to cultural differences.
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Unconvincing confederates?
A problem for the confederates in Aschs research is that it would've been difficult to act convincingly when giving the wrong answer with would have affected the validity of the study as it could have lead to demand characteristics.
However,Mori and Arai overcame the confederate problem by using a technique where participants wore glasses with special filters where it made one participant view the lines differently, thus giving the wrong answer convincingly. For female participants, results closely matched the original study, but not for males. This suggests the confederates in the original did act convincingly, therefore not affecting the findings.
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