Social Influence : Asch’s Experiment Flashcards
About Asch
• Solomon Asch (1907-1996) was born in Warsaw but
emigrated to the United States in 1920 at the age of 13
• His family were of Polish-Jewish heritage
• When Hitler was in full power during World War II, Asch studied the impact and consequences of indoctrination and propaganda.
• It was during the 1950s that Solomon Asch became famous due to his series of experiments better known as the Asch conformity experiments
• Social Psychology (1952) which is an embodiment of his theories
Classic Line Study: The Aim
to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
Classic Line Study: The Procedure
• 123 male undergraduate students, USA
• Lab experiment
• The p’s were given a false aim that they were taking part in a vision test
Classic Line Study: The Method
• There was only one real (naive) participant in groups of 6-8 confederates (actors)
• The group were shown two cards, one with a standard line and another with there comparison lines. P’s had to state which line was the matching one. The naive p always answered 2nd to last.
• In the first few trials the confederates always gave the right answer, but then they started making errors (all confederates making the same mistakes).
• The p’s took part in 18 trials and 12 were critical trials where the confederates gave the wrong answer.
Classic Line Study: Findings
• The naive participant gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time, this known as the conformity rate
• 25% p’s did not conform at all
• which means 75% conformed at least once
• This is known as the Asch effect
• how people conform even when the task is unambiguous (not open to more than one interpretation)
• In the control group 1% gave the wrong
• In post experiment interviews the p’s said they knew the answer but did it to avoid social rejection
Classic Line Study: Conclusion
People do conform (even in unambiguous tasks) in order to fit in and not be rejected by the group
Features changed in other experiments after the original (Asch)
• Use of confederates (as social support)
• Task difficulty
• Types of participants used (e.g. science students)
• The size of the group (e.g. 3 or more)
• Participants gave written answers rather than spoken responses
Group Size
• Asch wanted to investigate whether the size of the group was more important than the agreement of the group
• With three confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%, But after that there was little difference
• So, a small minority is not sufficient but there is no need for a majority of more than three
Unanimity
• Asch introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others
• sometimes the correct or incorrect answer known as a dissenter
• This was to test whether the presence of a non-conforming person could influence the real p
• The presence of the dissenter reduced conformity to 5.5% compared to when there was a unanimity
• Asch theorised that the influence of the confederate would make the real p feel more independent.
Task difficulty
• The task was made more difficult
• by making the standard line and comparison lines more similar in length
• Conformity increased under these conditions
• This suggests that informational social influence play a greater role when the task becomes harder
• This is because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance
Dissenter
Someone who answers the same as the true participant, conformity rates drop to a near 0
Disadvantages (Asch)
• Artificial situation - this means the experiment has low ecological validity (and cannot be generalised well to real-life situations) - it lacks mundane realism
• Deception - real participants did not know the other participants were confederates (ethics)
• Gender bias - Neta (1995) argues there are differences in conformity between men and women (females conform more)
Advantages (Asch)
• The laboratory setting meant variables were strictly controlled. This meant:
• The experiment could be repeated easily.
• The influence of extraneous variables (those not being studied) could be minimised.
