Asch

• ASCH: What was the aim of Asch's experiment?


  Aim = to investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to a majority who have obviously wrong answers
• ASCH: Who were the participants?


  123 American Male college age students - often in groups of 7 or 8 - with only 1 true participants and the other being 'confederates' or 'pseudo-participants'
• What is a confederate/pseudo participant? 


  actors, people who are in on the experiment
• ASCH: What was Asch's procedure?


  1. participants were presented with 4 lines - one standard/stimulus line and the others comparison lines
  2. the participants were asked to state which comparison line was the same length as the stimulus line
  3. the confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials
  4. the real participant always went last, or last but one
• ASCH: What did Asch find? 


  • 32% conformity rate for the incorrect answers
  • 75% of participants conformed to at least one wrong answer
  • 5% of participants conformed to all 12 wrong answers

  In a control trial, there was an error rate of 0.04% which shows just how obvious the answers were
• ASCH: What did the post-experiment interviews with participants find? 


  3 reasons for conformity
• ASCH: What did Asch find as the 3 reasons for conformity?


  1. Distortion of action - where the majority of participants conformed did so publicly, but not privately as they wished to avoid ridicule
  2. Distortion of perception - where some participants genuinely believed that their perception must actually be wrong and therefore conformed
  3. Distortion of judgement - where some participants had doubts concerning the accuracy of their judgements and so conformed
• ASCH: What did Asch conclude? 


  • the judgements of individuals are affected by majority opinions - even when they're obviously wrong
  • as most participants conformed publicly but not privately, it suggests that they were motivated by 'normative social influence' - avoiding rejection from the group
• ASCH EVALUATED: What are the strengths?


  • high reliability
  • supports the idea of 'normative social influence'
• ASCH EVALUATED: What are the weaknesses?


  • lacks ecological validity
  • not representative
  • lacks population validity
  • lacks temporal validity
  • ethical issues
• ASCH EVAL: high reliability

  • was a lab experiment (a controlled environment) and followed a standardised procedure
  • enabling others to easily replicate it
  • high control over variables enabled Asch to identify cause and effect
• ASCH EVAL: low ecological validity


  • carried out in an artifical environment (a lab)
  • will not reflect conforming behaviour in a real life setting
  • the 'line comparison' task is also not an everyday task
• ASCH EVAL: low population validity 


  • sample limited to american male students - so not representative of wider population
  • we don't know whether women would have displayed different levels of conformity
  • the results he got could simply be a reflection of american culture
  • students are more likely to conform due to less life experience and 'fitting in' is important for young people
• ASCH EVAL: low temporal validity


  • carried out in 1950s - in the height of the cold war - where americans were very anti-communist and anti-soviet
  • senator mccarthy encouraged americans to report anyone they believed to be a communist sympathiser
  • high levels of conformity amongst the population at the time
  • may explain the high levels of conformity seen in Asch's study
• Factors of conformity: Size of majority

  • an individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group
  • majority must be at least 3 in order to exert an influence
• Factors of conformity: Unanimity of majority

  • an individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous (all give the same answer)
• Factors of conformity: Task difficulty

  • an individual is more likely to conform when a task is more difficult - we look for the confirmation of others
  • a link to ISI