Social Influence

- The use of students in this key study is not representative of the wider population and older age groups. Therefore the study lacks external validity as we cannot say for certain the results would be similar when using a mixed age range which would be more indicative of real world settings

+ This was a lab experiment which allowed for the control of extraneous variables therefore Asch coul be more certain the confederates were influencing the participant

- However a weakness of the study is it lacks ecological validity and realism due to it being a lab experiment. Therefore it is unclear if similar behaviour would occur in real world settings as it lacks mundane realism

- All participants were also american students and therefore the behavoiur may be subject to cultural bias. It is not clear wheather similar behaviour may occur in other cultures beyond western society

+ The study had a large sample of over 100 participants and as it was a lab study it has been more easily replicated by others. the findings have been shown to be consistant and reliable

- One weakness for Asch's study is demand characteristics could have occured. The confederates were not trained actors and participants may have realised their responses were not real but still played along

- Gender bias could be argued as Asch's origional study only used males

-Ethical issues arise due to the participants being deceived as to the intention of the study with many believing it to be a test of vision rather than conformity. however thsi could be argued to be necessary to create realistic behaviour and all were debriefed after

- Participatns were deceived in both studies and this raises eithical issues, however it could be argued the deception was minor and necessary for realistic results which many would regard as ethically sound

- Both studies were conducted under lab settings and therefore lacked ecological validity as it was not indicative of real world settings. This raises the posibility of demand characteristics from the participants due to them being aware that they were being observered

-The studies both lack mundane realism as trying to estimate the movement of light or the number of jellybeans in a jar is unrealistic to real world situations where informational social influence could occur