Solomon Asch (1951)
Updated: 12/01/13
AIMS: To determine whether a majority can influence a minority even when the situation
is unambiguous. Asch questioned the results of Muzafer Sherif (1935) and other researchers
exploring what would become termed informational influence, reasoning that the participants
probably conformed because the stimulus was ambiguous. Asch aimed to find out if
the effects of majority influence that had previously been found in such situations
are so great that they are still present when it is apparently obvious that the majority
have responded incorrectly.
PROCEDURE (METHOD): Asch set up a situation in which 7 male student volunteers all
sat looking at a display. In turn, they had to say out loud which one of the three
lines A, B, or C was the same length as a given stimulus line X [see below]. All
but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and on some ‘critical’
trials the confederates were instructed unanimously to give the same wrong answer
on 12 of the 18 trials. The students always gave their answers in the same order
and the one genuine participant was the last (or the last but one) to offer his/her
opinion on each trial. The performance of participants exposed to such group pressure
was compared to performance in a control condition in which there were no confederates.
In all 123 genuine participants were tested.
FINDINGS (RESULTS): On the critical trials where the confederates gave the same wrong
answer, the genuine participants also gave the wrong answer on approximately 37%
of these trials. This should be compared against an error rate of only 0.7% in the
control condition - in other words, control group participants answered correctly
over 99% of the time when there was no social pressure.) Many of the participants
who gave wrong responses indicated that they had yielded to majority influence because
they didn’t want to stand out. Individuals who gave only correct answers said either
that they were confident in the accuracy of their own judgement or focused on doing
the task as directed (ie: being accurate and correct).
CONCLUSIONS: A majority can influence a minority even in an unambiguous situation
in which the correct answer is obvious (as was shown by the almost perfect performance
in the control condition). Asch showed convincingly that group pressures to conform
in terms of majority influence are much stronger than had been thought previously.
However, on about 2/3 of the crucial trials, the genuine participant gave the correct
answer, so many people managed to resist majority influence.
The participants were
perceived to be responding to what would be termed normative influence.
CRITICISMS (EVALUATION):
- Asch’s results may be explained in terms of the fact that the study took place in
America in the 1950s, a time when conformity was high and “doing your own thing”
was less socially acceptable. However, Asch’s basic findings have been repeated several
times more recently in various cultures.
- The research raises important ethical issues. Asch’s participants didn’t provide
fully informed consent, because they were misled about key aspects of the experimental
procedures (eg: presence of confederates). In addition, they were placed in a difficult
and embarrassing position.
- Asch’s situation was limited in that he only assessed conformity among strangers.
In fact, majority influence has been found to be even greater among friends than
among strangers. Timothy Williams & Shunya Sogon (1984) looked at Japanese students
belonging to a sports club and found that majority influence was much greater when
participants cared about the opinions of other group members. (The higher level of
conformity found by Williams & Sogon may reflect the collectivistic nature of Japanese
society and, therefore, may not be generalisable beyond similar societies.)
Dominic
Abrams et al (1990) found an in-group influence, proposing that their 1st-year Psychology
students would show more conformity if the other group members were perceived to
be in the same in-group (Psychology students from a nearby university) than if they
were from an out-group (Ancient History students from the same university). Accordingly,
there was conformity on 58% of trials when in the presence of an in-group but only
8% with an out-group.
The shared attitude and beliefs of the Psychology group could
also be seen as a result of their interdependency. - Asch obtained some relevant evidence from questioning his participants, but he didn’t
really explain exactly why there was so much majority influence. He also didn’t explain
why there were individual differences in the tendency to submit to majority influence.
- Like Sherif, Asch only investigated conformity in trivial situations which did not
call the participants deeply-held beliefs into question.
- Some commentators on Asch replications have found that many confederates (who are
not usually trained actors) struggle not to give the game away. Therefore, the results
are open to the criticism that the naive participant is displaying demand characteristics
- ie: that they realise the ruse and play along with rather than genuinely conform.
Kazuo
Mori & Miho Arai (2010), in Japan, got around this criticism by replicating Asch’s
study with groups of 4 genuine polarising filters. 3 in each group saw the same stimulus
line through the filters but the fourth saw a different line. The order of shouting
out which of A, B and C matched the stimulus line was the same as in Asch’s original.
Mori & Arai found a gender difference in that their female fourth participants conformed
to the similar levels to those of Asch’s original; however, the conformity rates
of Mori & Arai’s males were much lower.
Interestingly Mori & Arai acknowledged the
lack of mundane realism in both their own and Asch’s original studies. - Asch himself drew attention to the fact that over 53% of his participants had showed
independent behaviour and stuck to their guns in face of a totally different viewpoint
being expressed by an overwhelming majority.
