demonstration of NSI and Compliance

Who demonstrates NSI and Compliance?

Asch

What were Asch’s aims?

To see if participants would feel pressured into conforming to an obviously wrong answer

What was Asch’s procedure?

• participants asked to match one standard line with three possibilities

• Control study of 36 participants, 20 trials each, 720 total trails

• Experimental condition (50 male college students) tested in groups of 7, 8, 9, all the other members were confederates

• Confederates instructed to give the wrong answers on certain critical trials

• The naive participant was always last or 2nd to last

• Confederates gave the wrong answers on 12/18 trials

What were Asch’s findings?

• 26% of participants did not conform on any critical trials

• 5% of participants conformed on every critical trial

• 74% of participants conformed at least once

• 32% was the basic conformity rate

• After they were asked why they had conformed, some wanted to please the experimenter or thought conforming was what the experimenter wanted, few doubted their eyesight, others didn’t want to appear different

What was Asch’s conclusion?

• demonstration of normative social influence

• The finding that some did not want to appear different means that they did not internalise the answer and would return to their original belief - example of compliance

Evaluation point 1

P - The research has useful application that can benefit society

E - It alerts us to the fact that public voting may be affected by NSI, meaning that organisations that require their members opinions, may be better off asking their views privately

E - This has been taken on by trade unions, who no longer ask for a show of hands when attempting a vote, instead private ballots are the norm

L - demonstrating how knowledge of NSI has improved the democratic process

Evaluation point 2

P - Evidence suggests cultural bias in Asch’s research

E - Smith & Bond - analysed over 100 studies using an Asch type procedure and found that collectivist cultures conform more than individualist cultures.

E - Asch’s research was carried out in an individualist culture, so you would expect less conformity due to the value placed on inter-dependence

L - This means that Asch’s results may not generalise to non-western cultures, or collectivist sub-cultures within western society

Evaluation point 3

P - Asch’s study lack mundane realism due to the artificiality of the task and its trivial nature

E - It is unlikely that participants would’ve felt strongly about the task, as it was not an emotive issue. However, a real-life situation, conforming may involve compromise of the persons values.

E - This means that someone is less likely to conform due to normative pressures, therefore, Asch may have over-estimated conformity as his results are not generalisable

L - The artificiality of the situation means that conformity is studied outside of its true social context, making conforming behaviour negative, when it may be essential for social cohesion