Revision:Psychology AQA A PYA3 - Asch Criticisms

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Asch (1951) Criticisms

1) :-) The study was unambiguous, unlike Sherif’s (1935) and therefore it was a true test of conformity.

2) :-) The Asch paradigm has been replicated many times and is seen as a ‘way of doing’ conformity research.

3) :-( The sample was not representative of the target population, it was endocentric as all males were used. There has been evidence to suggest that females are more conformist than males, this mean that the findings cannot be applied to women. Also, all the participants were undergraduates and so cleverer than average for the population, this may have affected the results.

4) :-( Another reason that the sample was not representative was that all the participants were American, Smith and Bond (1998), reviewed 31 cross-cultural studies using Asch’s paradigm and found that members of more collectivistic cultures (e.g. African) were more likely conform than members of more individualistic cultures (e.g. American), this means that the findings cannot be universally applied.

5) :-( Perrin and Spencer have called the study ‘a child of its time’ as their more recent replications have not found similar results, this could be attributed to the fact that society in the 1950’s america was much more conformist than modern day - McCarthyism was rife, and the educational system were much more hierarchical.

6) :-( Participants were deceived and therefore informed consent could not be gained, also participants were stressed. However the harm caused was mild and was dealt with in a debrief, so some have argued that the deception was justified

7) :-( The setting lacked ecological validity; task was artificial and may not represent conformity in the outside world. (Therefore the results cannot be generalised to the real word)

Also See

• Asch Criticisms
• Milgram Criticisms
• Moscovici Criticisms
• Obey/Resist
• Why yield?

Comments

These notes are for AQA A Level psychology PYA3.