Is the Asch effect a child of its time?
Perrin and Spencer claimed that Asch's experiment was a "child of its time" as the 50's era was a very conformist one, whereas the 80's was not. The results may not have reflected a cultural change, but rather a sampling bias as the 80's wasn't a conformist time and they used a very skewed sample.
The results show a direct cause and effect link and so are ,therefore, reliable. A weakness of Asch's study into conformity is that the sample is made up entirely of American, undergraduate students so the results are only generalisable to that specific group and conformity may be higher in other groups.
Results of the Asch Conformity Experiments
Nearly 75% of the participants in the conformity experiments went along with the rest of the group at least one time. After combining the trials, the results indicated that participants conformed to the incorrect group answer approximately one-third of the time.
The Asch conformity experiments consisted of a group “vision test”, where study participants were found to be more likely to conform to obviously wrong answers if first given by other “participants”, who were actually working for the experimenter.
Asch devised an experiment, also known as the Solomon Asch line experiment, to test his theory that people will disregard their own perception of reality and go along with group consensus, even when the group's answer is clearly wrong.
Asch's finding was hugely influential, but a key criticism has been his use of confederates who pretended to believe unanimously that a line was a different length than it really was. They might well have behaved in a stilted, unnatural manner.
Asch's methodology can also be evaluated in terms of ethics. The weaknesses are that there was no informed consent as the participants were not told it was a study on conformity and social pressure. They were just told they were volunteering to take part in a study on visual perception, so there was deception.
Criticisms of the Asch Conformity Experiments
Some argue that the confederates' behaviors may have varied, depending on the specific confederate, with some being more convincing than others. Inconsistency in the application of the experimental variable is always a concern in an experimental design.
The experiment concluded that people conform for two main reasons: they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is more informed than they are (informational influence). Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment.
The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority.
What are the two main causes for conformity Asch concluded?
Asch concluded that there are two main causes for conformity: people want to be liked by the group or they believe the group is better informed than they are. He found his study results disturbing. To him, they revealed that intelligent, well-educated people would, with very little coaxing, go along with an untruth.
All the participants were male students who all belonged to the same age group. This means that the study lacks population validity and that the results cannot be generalized to females or older groups of people.
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, the real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the participants never conformed.
Conformity experiments. Asch is best known for his conformity experiments. His main finding was that peer pressure can change opinion and even perception. Asch found the majority of the participants succumbed at least once to the pressure and went with the majority.
The Asch conformity experiments have been repeated with a variety of independent variables (culture, sex, response conditions, etc.) for more than a half of century (Bond and Smith, 1996), but even from the beginning there were criticisms about the procedure.
Asch found that the presence of a "true partner" (a "real" participant or another actor told to give the correct response to each question) decreased conformity. In studies that had one actor give correct responses to the questions, only 5% of the participants continued to answer with the majority.
Appoint a devil's advocate: select someone from your team to provide the alternative position to any major decision you're making. This helps team members to step out from behind the curtain of unanimity and take a look at a challenge from all angles, helping to avoid costly mistakes.
Impact on Psychology
Asch himself did many variations on the study to see how different factors affected conformity. He found that a larger group and a harder task increased conformity. Meanwhile, he found that when people were allowed to answer privately or when the group was not unanimous, conformity decreased.
Despite the study causing no harm to participants, it could not be replicated today because participants were deceived during the experiment and Asch failed to obtain any informed consent.
A desire to be accepted, to not make waves, or to punish “non-conformists” has motivated bullying, exclusion, and even large-scale atrocities. The Holocaust is often cited as an example of the dangers of unchecked conformity and blind obedience to authority.
Why is Solomon Asch important?
Solomon Asch is considered a pioneer of social psychology and Gestalt psychology. 5 His conformity experiments demonstrated the power of social influence and still serve as a source of inspiration for social psychology researchers today.
Asch's research directly influenced many experts in the field, including Stanley Milgram. Milgram's study of obedience is one of the best-known in psychology; it demonstrates that people will obey an authority figure even when doing so requires them to harm another.
Perrin and Spencer repeated the study in the UK in the 1980s with engineering students. Only one student conformed out of 396 trials. This may have been as they were more confident. This is a limitation as it shows how Asch's effect is not consistent across time so may not be as relevant to behaviour.
Despite the study causing no harm to participants, it could not be replicated today because participants were deceived during the experiment and Asch failed to obtain any informed consent.
Secure evaluation points are always specific to the study described, for example explaining that Asch's research was a 'child of its time' and the results are therefore era dependent.
