Asch (1951)

Q: Asch (1951) and the Asch Effect

__Asch (1951)__ conducted an experiment looking at normative social influence. He wanted to see if people would conform to a group's wrong answer even if the answer was unambiguous. The Asch effect is the influence of the group's majority view on an individual’s judgment.

Q: Analysing Asch's (1951) Experiment on Conformity

__Asch's (1951)__ experiment looked at whether people would go along with an incorrect answer, even if the correct answer was obvious. There were pros and cons to the methodology used in Asch's study.

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Asch (1951) and the Asch Effect

Asch (1951) conducted an experiment looking at normative social influence. He wanted to see if people would conform to a group's wrong answer even if the answer was unambiguous. The Asch effect is the influence of the group's majority view on an individual’s judgment.

Line judgment task

A group of participants were shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c, and then a fourth line segment: x.
They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group most closely resembled the length of line segment x.

Confederates

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher.
A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. They are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design.
True, naive participants believe that the confederates are uninformed participants like them.
In Asch's study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line - a wrong answer.

Participant's choice

After hearing the confederates choose an incorrect line segment, the naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.
Asch found that 75% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by choosing the incorrect line because of the group's views.

Factors that influence conformity

Asch found four key factors that influence conformity:
- The size of the majority: the greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform, but there is an upper limit where adding more members does not increase conformity (up to seven in Asch's experiment).
- The presence of another dissenter/non-conformist: if there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero.

Factors that influence conformity cont.

Asch found four key factors that influence conformity:
- The public or private nature of the responses: when responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately, conformity is less likely.
- Task difficulty: the harder the lines were to distinguish in length, the more conformity increased.

Analysing Asch's (1951) Experiment on Conformity

Asch's (1951) experiment looked at whether people would go along with an incorrect answer, even if the correct answer was obvious. There were pros and cons to the methodology used in Asch's study.

Pros

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.

Cons

Artificial situation - this means the experiment has low ecological validity (and cannot be generalised well to real-life situations).
Deception - real participants did not know the other participants were confederates.

Factors Affecting Conformity - Asch (1951)

Asch identified that confidence may affect conformity. Other studies suggest that gender affects conformity.

Confidence in Asch's study

Asch found that participants who had not conformed all displayed confidence.
Participants who felt confident in their decisions did not succumb to group pressure as easily.

Confidence in other studies

Perrin and Spencer (1980) carried out Asch's experiment on engineering students. Conformity rates were not as high as in Asch's experiment. This might be because the engineers were confident in their decision-making.
Wiesenthal et al. (1976) observed that participants who were confident in their ability to complete a task were not as likely to conform.

Gender - Eagly and Carli (1981)

Before the 1970s, many psychologists felt that women conformed more than men.
But when Eagly and Carli (1981) analysed conformity research data, they found inconsistencies in sex differences. They found that males and females differed most in studies where audiences created group pressure.

Gender - Eagly (1987)

Eagly (1987) believed that men and women show different levels of conformity because of their different social roles.
- Women are more likely to conform because they don't like group conflict.
- Men are less likely to conform because they are expected to show independence and assertiveness.