Evaluation of Asch's Study

Evaluation of Asch's Study

1. Low Temporal Validity

   • McCarthyism
     • 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.
     • Making people reluctant to stand out from the crowd, hence meaning that there was an increased amount of compliance.
     • Less generalisable as it was at a time where more people would have conformed.

2. Ecological Validity

   • Laboratory Experiment
     • It is an artificial set up that could cause artificial results
       • They may have behaved differently to how they would have done if they were around work partners or friends.
     • It has greater reproducibility so can be tested to see if correct.
       • Meaning it may be more reliable as you are able to repeat and check the findings of Asch.
       • The procedure was the same for everybody.
   • Lacking in Mundane Realism
     • The task wasn't a natural task
       • The results cant be generalised to other life situations.

3. Population Validity

   • All of the 123 participants were male college students from America
     • This was a biased sample
     • Cannot be generalised to how women, children or those whom are older would have reacted.
     • Use of a bad and un-generaliseable sample

4. Smith and Bond (1998) A meta-analysis of research

   • Meta-Analysis of studies on conformity.
   • Collectivist countries (such as Japan) showed greater conformity than those from Individualist countries (such as US and UK)
   • The impact of cultural variables on conformity levels was greater than any other variable (eg. gender)
   • Similarities with Asch Study
     • Conformity was higher with larger majority sizes
     • Conformity was higher with a greater proportion of female participants
     • The more ambiguous the task, the higher the levels of conformity in all of the (individualist and collectivist)
   • Limitations of analysis
     • Not all cultures are all individualist people and all collectivist people. There is participant variability.

5. Ethical Issues

   • 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
     • Making it more reliable as they are not playing up to how they should be behaving (demand characteristics)
     • They weren't told the full extent of the experiment meaning that they were treated ethically wrong