Asch and Zimbardo’s research set up can be criticised by their questionable amount of internal validity, as the participants may of felt obliged to developed a certain role (demand characteristics) and rise up to the expectations of the experiment and the experimenter, rather than the participants actually conforming to social influence by others of equal status and group pressure or by the situation. However this criticism can be argued, as video tape evidence and other evidence in the Asch experiment, shows that participants felt discomfort during the experiment which confirms their actual deception, and as shown on the video tape the participant’s body language and facial expressions show clear discomfort, where some of the participants conform by compliance. There were also reports that some of the participants were impressed by the smartness of the research’s method which supports that Asch’s research has internal validity as it suggests that the participants had been ‘taken in’.
In Zimbardo's experiment, criticism of intentional role play can be argued, as although some of the guards stated that they were influenced by a film where guards were stereo typed in it, however the behaviour of the guards in the research acted un- humane towards the other participants who were the prisoners. The guards reacted
past the excepted line of what is going too far in role play, as there is evidence of this
as the prisoner participant’s were physically abused and harassed by the guards; ‘Zimbardo (1973) found that harassment of prisoners was greater when individual guards were alone with solitary prisoners or out of range of the experiment’s recording equipment’- (Psychology for as level, Michael W. Eysenck page 203) This shows that the participants were conforming to real roles (identification). Other evidence is that the participant’s role allocations were picked randomly, hence the breakdown of civilization wouldn’t be by personality and not the situation, but would be the situation which causes the civilization breakdown and not personality; although they may feel that they were playing a role.
Asch’s and Zimbardo’s research can be questioned through external validity, as both researches were tested in an artificial environment. Asch’s in particular did not have mundane realism as the tasks which were carried out were not appropriate in real life,
as a result it may not be a representation of real life conformity, however this research still shows that people do conform, and could be relate to other situations.
This criticism can be argued through some extent in contradiction to Zimbardo’s research as although the surroundings were artificial, the participants experienced it as a real life prison experience. In addition Asch’s study has been replicated and the result findings have been generalisable which shows his research has external validity.
Asch’s study’s temporal validity can be queried as according to Perin and Spencer (1980), Asch’s results were ‘ a child of its time’, meaning that the results would only have external validity and have similar results produced elsewhere in that moment in time, as the results now have differed and levels of conformity have decreased shows that Perin and Spencer’s view, the reason for this is because social constructions have changed in contrast to the 1950s, and people are now more independent, free will, and individualistic, where as in the 1950s you would have to follow a certain order of being accepted and if you did not agree with others you may have been punished in some from, where as now there is no punishment for free will within reason. Evidence of this is Smith and Bond’s (1993) meta-analysis of studies which replicated Asch's study in the US proves this.
Asch’s and Zimbardo's study’s can be criticised as the participants were uninformed and weren’t given the real reasons (deception) of the experiment, Zimbardo did inform to his participants of the experiment but deception and infirmity may have been lead in some occasions, where he failed to reveal to the prisoners that they would be arrested at home. However for the research to work at its optimum these ethical issues had to be ignored, the justification for Asch's deception was that he would of not got true results, and the participants may of tried to give answers to meet expectations of the study therefore it would of not had as much internal validity.
The justification for Zimbardo un-informing the participant’s was that to get the best
possible result he would have to make the study as real as possible. Other ethical boundaries which were crossed was the lack of protection of the participants, this occurred mostly with Zimbardo’s study as some of the participants suffered depression, and emotional disturbance and had to be released early. In Asch’s study the participants were left to feel embarrassed.
When conducting study’s, it is difficult to ensure that all ethical guideline standards are met, however ethical standards when these study’s had been carried out, were much different to the ethical standards put in place today; therefore it can be difficult and unfair to judge the research’s with today ethical standard’s.
The reasons for conducting a cost benefit analysis is that the participants are likely to feel obliged to see the experiment to the end as they are getting paid, so consequently the participant may feel that a deal/ contract has been made and should therefore fulfil the deal which relates to the double obligations dilemma of the participants versus society; where the end does justify the means as the study’s showed different parts of the human nature which may of not been known if the study’s weren’t conducted, this there justifies the temporary issues of the experience. Although Zimbardo’s participants suffered more, a result had still been concluded, and showed the aim of the experiment; also these two studies helped to develop ethical guidelines for future experiments and studies.
As a conclusion the methodological criticisms as a whole do not greatly reduce the meaningfulness of the research and the end result does justify the means. The main methodological aspect that affects both study’s was the sample bias, as the tests would have more internal validity if a range of different types of people were used, and both would have larger external validity if the study was taken in different areas of the world; therefore it limits its realism to a certain extent as these researches are only valid for one group type of population.
Although ethical issues can be criticised for both experiments, both had justifications to ensure the best possible true result, avoiding role play and characteristic demands, and contributed in developing ethical guidelines.
