Evaluation of Asch's Research into conformity

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  • Created by: xjvxerix
  • Created on: 07-11-16 10:49

Evaluation of Asch's Research into conformity

1) Artificial situation and task.

  • it was a lab experiment so doesn’t reflect real life
  • Demand characteristics as participants knew they were in a research study
  • judging length of lines is a trivial task. Conformity would drop on a more real life task such as making a decision in a jury.
  • This is a limitation as it can’t be generalised with real life where consequences for conformity are more important.Therefore, it lacks ecological validity

2) child of its time

  • The styudy was carried out in history of USA where conformity was high becuase people conformed as its was a social norm.
  • Perin and spencer replicated ash's study with engineering students and conformity rates were only 1 of 396 trials becasue they were confident in thier judgement. this is a limitation as it questions the reliablity of asch's study.

3) Cultural

  • USA is an individualistic culture where people are concerned with themselves then social group. whereas in a collectivist cultures such as china conformity will be higher where social groups are more important than an individual.This is a limitation as ash's findings can 't be generalised with people outside USA.

4) Eithical Issues

  • it didnt provide fully  informed consent and deception
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