What does Asch mean in psychology?
In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.
The experiments revealed the degree to which a person's own opinions are influenced by those of a group. Asch found that people were willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer in order to conform to the rest of the group.
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.
Asch made the line-judging task more difficult by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity increased under the conditions. This suggests that informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder.
Asch's research on conformity demonstrated the powerful influence of social factors, particularly peer pressure, on our perception of the world. Participants in Asch's experiments often conformed to the group's incorrect judgments, illustrating the impact of social influence on individual behavior.
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).
Asch's experiment suggested that when participants thought everyone else saw things differently than they did, they conformed to others' judgments rather than their own.
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.
A strength of Asch's study into conformity is that it was carried out in a lab setting and was carefully controlled. This means that there was good control over extraneous variables, therefore any change in results was due to the change in the independent variable and its effect on the dependent variable.
Asch (1951) conducted one of the most famous laboratory experiments examining conformity. He wanted to examine the extent to which social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to conform.
Which of the following best defines the Asch effect?
Expert-Verified Answer
The best definition of the Asch effect among the given options is: influence of the group majority on an individual's judgment. This phenomenon highlights the power of social pressure and the desire to fit in, even when it may lead to inaccurate or irrational decisions.
There are two types of conformity present in Asch's study: normative conformity which is when someone conforms in order to be liked and accepted and informative conformity which is when someone conforms because they believe others know more than they do, thus they must be right.
Asch (1956) found that group size influenced whether subjects conformed. The bigger the majority group (no of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.
Conformity is a form of social influence that involves a change in the common belief or behavior of a person or group of people to fit in a demographic. The change is a response to perceived societal pressure or the physical presence of other people.
The results suggest that conformity can be influenced both by a need to fit in and a belief that other people are smarter or better informed. Over the 12 critical trials, 75% of participants conformed at least once. 25% of participants never conformed.
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.
Definition. Conformity is the tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules shared by a group of individuals on how they should behave.
What is the major flaw in the Asch conformity study? Asch ignored the importance of several factors influencing conformity—including race, class, and gender.
Several factors are associated with increased conformity, including larger group size, unanimity, high group cohesion, and perceived higher status of the group. Other factors associated with conformity are culture, gender, age, and importance of stimuli.
(p. 292) The difference between the Asch effect and groupthink is that victims of groupthink are strangers to each other while Asch's subjects are a friendly and tight-knit group.
What is the unanimity of Asch?
Unanimity refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another, and was identified by Asch as a variable that affects conformity. He found that if one of the confederates dissented and gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped from 32% to 5%.
The main purpose of the section "conclusion" in the Asch experiment is to summarize the findings and results of the study. It allows the researcher to draw conclusions about the experiment and make interpretations based on the data collected.
The independent variable in Asch's 1955 study was the response of the confederates and the dependent variable was the subject's response to the same question. The operational definition of conformity was the assent of the subject with the group majority (Asch, 1955).
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.
Weaknesses of Asch's conformity study:
Asch's line study was conducted in a laboratory setting which lacks ecological validity. This means the environment was artificial and unnatural which may have caused them to behave in a way that may not generalise to natural settings.
