3. Asch- A Demonstration of normative social influence and compliance

Aims

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

Procedure

• participants asked to match one standard line with three possibilities

• In a Control Study of 36 participants taking part in 20 trials each, over 720 trials only 3 mistakes were made- shows that the task is easy

• 50 male college students

• In the experimental condition participants were tested in groups of 7, 8 or 9 and all other members of the group were confederates

• The confederates were instructed beforehand to give the same wrong answer on certain critical trials

• The participants were always last or second to last to answer

• Confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 of the 18 critical trials- known as critical trials

Overall conformity rate for the 12 critical trials

32%

percentage of participants who conformed at least once?

74%

Percentage of participants who did not conform at all

26%

Percentage of participants who conformed on every critical trial

5%

Why did the participants conform?

When the participants were asked why they had conformed:

• Wanted to please the experimenter- thought conforming was what experimenter wanted

• Doubted own eyesight

• Did not want to appear different or look foolish

Conclusions

• demonstrates normative social influence and compliance- many did not want to appear different and did not internalise their answer and would have returned to their original belief

AO3- useful applications

P- research has useful applications which can potentially benefit society

E- e.g. it alerts us to the fact that public voting may be affected by normative social influence and therefore organisations that require their members’ opinions should ask them to give their views privately

E- private ballots have now become the norm- for example Trade Unions no longer ask for a show of hands when voting for strike action

L- our knowledge of normative social influence has improved the democratic process

AO3- cultural bias

P- there is evidence that suggests cultural bias in Asch’s research

E- For example, Smith and 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 we would expect less conformity due to the value placed on independence and autonomy. However, in a collectivist culture, such as China and Japan, we would expect more conformity due to the emphasis placed on inter-dependence and being part of a group

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

AO3- lacks mundane realism

P- Asch’s Study lacks mundane realism due to the artificial und trivial nature of the task

E- participants are unlikely to have felt strongly about the task because judging the length of a line is not an emotive issue. However, in a real life situation conforming may compromise a person’s values, for example being with a group who laugh at a racist joke. This may mean that someone is less likely to conform due to normative pressures in an everyday situation, and therefore Asch may have overestimated conformity as his results are not necessarily generalisable

E- in addition, the artificiality of the situation means that conformity is studied outside of its true social context, which makes conforming behaviour look odd or negative, when we might actually consider it to be essential for social cohesion

L - Asch’s Study may tell us little about conformity in real life

AO3- lacks temporal validity

P- Asch’s Study can be criticised for lacking temporal validity

E- Perrin and Spencer- replicated Asch’s research nearly 30 years after Asch’s Original Study on science and engineering students. They found only one conforming result in 396 critical trials

E- this suggests that Asch’s original results no longer apply to our society as conformity has decreased

L - questions the long lasting relevance of Asch’s study