To what extent has research supported the view that the majority exerts a significant degree of influence over the individual?

However, if we analyse Asch’s experiment and results more critically and in depth, we are able to see that there is much more to it than just this. When evaluating an experiment, we must look at important factors such as its internal validity. It could be argued that Asch’s study lacked internal validity and it wasn’t actually conformity, because the participants may have guessed the purpose of the study and simply gave wrong answers thinking that is what their mentor wanted them to do. This means that the majority doesn’t actually exert that much pressure and his results are inaccurate. On the other hand, in the post-experimental interviews, many participants freely admitted they gave wrong answers in order to be seen as a member of the group and to ‘fit in’ showing that they were conforming instead. Another factor we must look at it to assess the study fully is the external validity. Asch’s study lacked ecological validity because the study was a laboratory experiment which meant it was based in an artificial atmosphere and this situation is unlikely to ever happen in real life. This means the results have little meaning as they cannot be applied to reality (you will never be asked to sit in a room with strangers and compare lines out of choice) therefore, we cannot come to the conclusion that any conformity did take place. Looking at what the confederates were asked to do also, we could say that the experiment lacked any real purpose or meaning (was too easy) and perhaps participants would have conformed less in more serious decision-making situations. Another category that needs to be examined inside of the external validity section is its historical validity. His experiment was conducted in the 1950’s where non-conformity was highly discouraged and seen as a threat to the American way of life because of the threat of communism meaning the results of the experiment could just reflect that certain time period then. If we look at another study example, e.g. Perrin and Spencer (1980) who attempted to repeat Asch’s study in England, we can see their results were not similar to Asch’s. 1 in every 396 trails conformed which shows a very small amount of conformity compared to Asch’s 75%. They then repeated this but in a collection of probation officers (work) and got similar results to Asch which shows that conformity is more likely when the perceived costs of non-conformity are high (internalisation)

Also, in his study, Asch used 123 male students only which also means the experiment lacks population validity as they don’t represent the wider population and therefore we are unable to generalise the results on the population as a whole. Thus meaning we cannot come to the conclusion that the ‘majority exerts significant pressure’ for definite.

Studying all the information we have on Asch’s experiments, including the faults and findings, we could say that instead of showing human beings as being overly conformist, he managed to demonstrate a commendable tendency to stick to what we believe in as two thirds of the participants managed to stick to what they originally thought the answer would be. This shows independent behaviour rather than conformity, putting our conclusion to the majority can exert a certain amount of influence over an individual, but in most circumstances, people show more signs of independent behaviour than conformity.