Social influence - Asch (1951)

Question 1

What was Asch’s aim?

Answer 1

To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could cause a person to conform

Question 2

What was the procedure to the experiment?

Answer 2

Asch’s had created a vision test where participants were to compare line lengths. Asch chose 50 male college students to participate. However, he had put confederates (actors), who had already submitted their answer in advance, in the sample of students to test whether the real participants would conform to the majority voted answer, even if it was wrong. The real participant would vote their answer 2nd to last and each participant would say their answer out loud.

Question 3

What were Asch’s results?

Answer 3

Asch had recorded that the real participant had conformed to the incorrect answer on 32% of the critical trials, 74% conformed on at least 1 of the critical trials.

Question 4

What were Asch’s conclusions?

Answer 4

He later interviewed the real participants that had conformed and they had said they knew their answer was wrong but they wanted to fit in and not be ridicule; this allowed Asch to conclude that the participants conformed due to normative social influence

Question 5

How can we evaluate Asch’s experiment?

Answer 5

Strengths:
- Performed in Lab; controlled setting (Reliable and replicable)

Weaknesses:
- Low mundane realism
- Gender bias (only males)
- Cultural bias (American only)
- Age bias (only from college)
- Artificial tasks used by Asch does not reflect every day life choices (ungeneralisable)
- Morally questionable as the real participants are being deceived and there is no protection from psychological or physical harm

Question 6

What are variations of Asch’s procedure?

Answer 6

In further trials, Asch changed the procedure of his study:
- Size of group (the larger the majority the more likely conformity will occur)
- Non conforming role model (the real ppt has a supporter and will be less likely to conform)
- Difficulty of task (the difficulty of a task will increase the likelihood of conformity)
- Private answering (less normative social influence meaning less conformity)