Asch aimed to investigate the effects of group pressure on individuals in unambiguous situations

by danielleleary (student)

Aims and context of Asch

Conformity is the change in behaviour of the minority to fit the behaviour of the majority. It is an important process for psychologists to understand as it is thought to have a significant impact on many of our behaviours and the decisions we make in many situations. For example, how juries make decisions and student behaviour in a classroom.

Jenness in 1932 asked students to guess how many beans there were in a jar. Then they were given and opportunity to discuss their estimates and asked to give their individual estimates again. He found that the individual estimates tended to converge to a group norm.

Sherif in 1935 conducted an investigation using the auto kinetic effect (a stationary spot of light is projected on to a screen which appears to move). He told them he was going to move the light and asked them to estimate how far the light had moved. They estimated individually and then asked to work within 3 others who gave different estimates they were then asked to give another estimate; these became quite similar to the norm.

An issue with these studies is that Asch thought their research was limited and did not really measure conformity. Asch believed that Sherif’s research was limited by the fact that the auto kinetic effect situation is ambiguous and therefore did not reflect real conformity.

Asch aimed to investigate the effects of group pressure on individuals in unambiguous situations; he wanted to find out if when confronted with an obviously incorrect answers which perpetuated this error or whether they would give an independent response.

Procedures of Asch

The participants were 123 male student volunteers from local colleges in the US. Each participant was told that they would be taking part in a psychological experiment into ‘visual judgements’ and were asked to compare lengths of lines.

The participants were directed to a room where the study would take place and they joined a group of seven to nine other ‘participants’ who were in fact confederates of the researcher. They were shown two white cards; one card had a single vertical lone known as the standard line. The second had 3 vertical lines, one matching the standard and the other two being significantly different lengths.

The group were asked to verbally report which line matched the standard line and was repeated 18 times. The naive participant is seated in the second to last seat and do not know the other participants are confederates and the experiment is actually on conformity.

Initially, all of the participants and confederates gave the correct answers. On the third trial, the confederates all gave the same, incorrect answer. The seating was so arranged so the participant was the last to give their answer. Whether the participant agreed with the confederates or not was noted by the researchers

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After completing the trial the naive participants were told the true nature of the experiment and were interviewed about their responses and behaviour.

Modifications were made to the original research, where the naive participates were given a truthful partner, they gave correct answers for the first six trials and then conformed, left the experiment and deserted the naive participant and also increased the number of participants.

Findings and conclusions of Asch

In a control study carried out before this experiment, it was found that less than 1% of people made errors 1% of people made errors when carrying out this task when by themselves. This suggests that this task is unambiguous.

Asch found that when faced with unambiguous wrong answers from confederates, the naive participants gave wrong answers 36.8% of the time on critical trials. However, 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer once, did not conform. At the other extreme, some participants agreed with the majority on nearly every critical trial and 75% of the participants conformed at least once.

Regardless of whether participants conformed or not, their behaviour was consistent. Thos who didn’t agree with the majority, tended not to agree with them consistently. When the participants were interviewed, the participants who did not conform, they replied that they knew that they were correct, and that felt it was their obligation to they call the play as they saw it.

Those who did conform gave different reasons. They explained their behaviours in various ways, they said they yielded in order not to spoil the results. Some thought they were ‘deficient’ in comparison with the rest of the group and this needed to be hidden at all costs.

When Asch changed the size of the majority he found that with only one confederate the naive participant was swayed very little. With two confederates the naive participant accepted the wrong answer 13.6% of the time. With three confederates it was 31.8%. The addition of further confederates made very little difference.

Having a truthful partner reduced the pressure to conform, participants answered incorrectly on 25% as often as in the baseline investigation.

With a partner who changes his mind, when the confederate partner started by being independent but then conformed, the naive participant also behaved independently but then submitted to the majority. Thus his initial independent behaviour had no lasting effect.

If the independent partner gas to leave after the first 6 trials (for pre-arranged appointment) then the naive participant reverted to being influenced by the majority but less so than if the partner had deserted for no good reason.

In conclusion, this study shows that there is a surprisingly strong tendency to conform to group pressures in a situation where the answer is clear. Asch pointed out that group agreement is a necessary aspect of social life, but it is psychologically unhealthy to be dominated by group pressure.

Methodology of Asch

One weakness of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that it lacks ecological validity.

For example, judging the length of the line is nor a realistic everyday task and was done in artificial settings.

This is weakness because results lacks realism and cannot be generalised to everyday life therefore it does not show how people conform in the real world.

One weakness of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that it broke ethical guidelines.

For example, the participants thought they were taking part in an experiment on visual judgement.

This is weakness because the participants were deceived. Therefore they did not gain informed consent. This could therefore lead to psychological harm. However, Asch did debrief them afterwards.

One weakness of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that it lacks reliability.

For example, Larser repeated Asch’s research in 1974. He found that conformity levels were a lot lower than those found by Asch.

This is a weakness because it does not support Asch’s research. Therefore the results of Asch may not be applicable to today, therefore they may only have been valid at the time of the study.

One strength of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that the method had a high level of control because he used a controlled observation.

For example, the independent variable was to be controlled, where the naive partner sat or the truthful partner.

This is a strength because it allows for cause and effect to be established and has a standardised procedure therefore it can be repeated.

One weakness of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that he used a controlled observation.

For example, the naive partner felt as if they had to agree with the confederates.

This is a weakness because participants may have demand characteristics which make the results invalid.

One weakness of Asch’s study ‘opinions and social pressure’ is that the sample used was limited.

For example, he used a volunteer sample of 123 undergraduates from different US colleges.

This is a weakness because it is both gender-biased and culture-biased and therefore cannot be generalised to women and different cultures.

Critically asses Asch

Jenness (1932) found that when participants were asked to estimate the number of beans in a jar their individual estimates tended to converge to a group norm. This supports Asch’s study as both studies had similar findings. However, this also criticises Asch’s study because Asch thought his study was better as the task as unambiguous so it measured conformity better than the ambiguous situation of guessing the number of beans in the jar.

Sherif (1935) created an investigation into conformity using the auto kinetic effect to show informational social influence. They shined a stationary beam of light into a dark room and asked the participant to estimate how far they thought it had moved. Their results tended to converge to a group norm. This supports Asch’s study as it shows how people conform when they’re in a group. This is also challenges Asch’s study as Asch thought his study was better as the task was unambiguous so measured conformity better than the ambiguous situation of a light moving, maybe people conformed because they were unsure how to act.

Perrin & Spencer (1980) suggested that Asch’s high conformity rates might be down be due to the fact that the research was conducted in the USA in the 1950’s which was the era of highly conformist society. They repeated Asch’s study in Britain in the late 1960’s and found that out of 396 critical trials only one student conformed. This contradicts Asch’s study as it shows that the conformity levels Asch found may be only due to the era and country he carried out.