Evaluation of Asch's Study

Low Temporal Validity
1. McCarthyism
  1. During this time period (1950's) through America there was lots of questioning and accusations that you would have been a communist or sympathetic to communists, therefore meaning that it lacks temporal validity as it was a time of greater conformity. Affecting the way in which the participants would have reacted to the task and each other.
  2. Making people reluctant to stand out from the crowd, hence meaning that there was an increased amount of compliance.
  3. Less generalisable as it was at a time where more people would have conformed.
Ecological Validity
1. Laboratory Experiment
  1. It is an artificial set up that could cause artificial results
    1. They may have behaved differently to how they would have done if they were around work partners or friends.
  2. It has greater reproducibility so can be tested to see if correct.
    1. Meaning it may be more reliable as you are able to repeat and check the findings of Asch.
    2. The procedure was the same for everybody.
2. Lacking in Mundane Realism
  1. The task wasn't a natural task
    1. The results cant be generalised to other life situations.
Population Validity
1. All of the 123 participants were male college students from America
  1. This was a biased sample
  2. Cannot be generalised to how women, children or those whom are older would have reacted.
  3. Use of a bad and un-generaliseable sample
Smith and Bond (1998) A meta-analysis of research
1. Meta-Analysis of studies on conformity.
2. Collectivist countries (such as Japan) showed greater conformity than those from Individualist countries (such as US and UK)
3. The impact of cultural variables on conformity levels was greater than any other variable (eg. gender)
4. Similarities with Asch Study
  1. Conformity was higher with larger majority sizes
  2. Conformity was higher with a greater proportion of female participants
  3. The more ambiguous the task, the higher the levels of conformity in all of the (individualist and collectivist)
5. Limitations of analysis
  1. Not all cultures are all individualist people and all collectivist people. There is participant variability.
Ethical Issues
1. The participants were told that they were taking part in a 'vision test', therefore meaning that they have been deceived of the true intentions of the experiment
  1. Making it more reliable as they are not playing up to how they should be behaving (demand characteristics)
  2. They weren't told the full extent of the experiment meaning that they were treated ethically wrong

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Evaluation of Asch's Study

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	Created by alice.fletcher12 about 11 years ago