What did Solomon Asch do in his experiment?
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
What was Asch interested in?
Asch was interested to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view. Asch's experiment also had a control condition where there were no confederates, only a "real participant.".
How did Asch use the line judgment test?
Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges. The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task.
What did Asch think of the high levels of conformity found by Asch?
Some critics thought the high levels of conformity found by Asch were a reflection of American, 1950's culture and told us more about the historical and cultural climate of the USA in the 1950s than then they do about the phenomena of conformity.
What was the main problem with Sherif's (1935) conformity experiment?
He believed that the main problem with Sherif's (1935) conformity experiment was that there was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment. How could we be sure that a person conformed when there was no correct answer?
What does Asch mean by low ecological validity?
This means that the study has low ecological validity and the results cannot be generalized to other real-life situations of conformity. Asch replied that he wanted to investigate a situation where the participants could be in no doubt what the correct answer was. In so doing he could explore the true limits of social influence.
When did Asch change the procedure?
In further trials, Asch (1952, 1956 ) changed the procedure (i.e., independent variables) to investigate which situational factors influenced the level of conformity (dependent variable).
What are the results of Asch's experiment?
The results of Asch's experiment resonate with what we know to be true about the nature of social forces and norms in our lives. The behavior and expectations of others shape how we think and act on a daily basis because what we observe among others teaches us what is normal, and expected of us. The results of the study also raise interesting questions and concerns about how knowledge is constructed and disseminated, and how we can address social problems that stem from conformity, among others.
Who conducted the Asch conformity experiment?
The Asch Conformity Experiments, conducted by psychologist Solomon Asch in the 1950s, demonstrated the power of conformity in groups and showed that even simple objective facts cannot withstand the distorting pressure of group influence.
What was Asch's goal?
Asch's goal was to see if the real participant would be pressured to answer incorrectly in the instances when the Confederates did so, or whether their belief in their own perception and correctness would outweigh the social pressure provided by the responses of the other group members.
What did Solomon Asch demonstrate about social pressure?
The Asch Conformity Experiments, conducted by psychologist Solomon Asch in the 1950s, demonstrated the power of conformity in groups and showed that even simple objective facts cannot withstand the distorting pressure of group influence.
What does the Asch experiment reveal?
The Asch conformity experiment reveals how strongly a person’s opinions are affected by people around them.
Why did some people go along with the Asch conformity experiment?
Some in the Asch conformity experiment said they went along with the group to avoid standing out, although they knew the group was wrong . A small number of people in the Asch conformity experiment actually said they saw the lines in the same way as the group.
What percentage of conformity was reduced in the Asch experiment?
Asch himself found that if the participant only had to write down their answer (while others called theirs out) conformity was reduced to 12.5 percent.
What did Muzafer Sherif find?
A previous experiment by Muzafer Sherif (see his well-known Robbers Cave experiment) had found that when people were faced with making a judgement on an ambiguous test, they used other people’s judgements as a reference point. This makes perfect sense. If I’m not sure about something, I’ll check with someone else.
What percentage of people gave the same wrong answer as the others on more than half of the trials?
50 percent of people gave the same wrong answer as the others on more than half of the trials.
Is the Asch experiment dangerous?
The dangers of conformity, as in the Asch conformity experiment, are only too well-known, just take a look at the implications of the Milgram experiment for a glimpse at what humans will do in the name of conformity. Sometimes it really is better if we think for ourselves rather than relying on what others say and do.
Who interviewed participants after the experiment?
Intrigued as to why participants had gone along with the majority, Asch interviewed them after the experiment.
What was the purpose of the Asch experiment?
Asch stated that the purpose of the experiment was to test the extent to which an individual's opinions are influenced by those of a group majority. He discovered that only 25% of the participants chose the line they knew to be correct every time.
When did Asch test his theory?
To test his theory, in 1951, Asch devised what is now considered a classic experiment in social psychology. He assembled a group of eight students on the premise that they were being given a vision test.
What is Ch 4.?
Ch 4. The Self in a Social Context
Who believed that people behave according to how they perceive the world, not to how it actually is?
Sometimes they will even break the law. Solomon Asch believed that people behave according to how they perceive the world, not to how it actually is. In 1951, Solomon Asch conducted his now-famous conformity experiment, which is commonly referred to as Asch's line experiment.
Who was Solomon Asch?
Solomon Asch was an American psychologist and a pioneer in social psychology who believed that people behave according to how they perceive the world, not to how it actually is. Asch sought to explain why an individual would give in to group consensus even though it violated his or her personal beliefs.
Why do people in the crowd pretended to see a whale?
In the opening example, the people in the crowd pretended to see a nonexistent whale so they could avoid embarrassment from not seeing a whale they thought that everyone else saw. You can find countless examples of social conformity in everyday life; people are influenced by those around them.
What did Solomon Asch do?
He created pieces of work in impression formation, prestige suggestion, conformity, and many other topics in social psychology. Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
How many times did the students give the wrong answer in the experiment?
There were 18 trials in total and the seven students who were in on the experiment purposely gave the wrong answer 12 times. The point of the experiment was to see if the real participant would give the right answer or if they would conform to the majority.
Experimental Procedure
- Experimental Procedure
Asch used a lab experimentto study conformity, whereby 50 male students from Swarthmore College in the USA participated in a ‘vision test.’ Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges. The confederates had agreed in advanc…
Findings
- Findings
Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed. In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.
Conclusion
- Conclusion
Why did the participants conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar. A few of them said that they really …
Critical Evaluation
- Critical Evaluation
One limitation of the study is that is used a biased sample. All the participants were male students who all belonged to the same age group. This means that the study lacks population validity and that the results cannot be generalized to females or older groups of people. Another problem is t…
Asch Conformity Video Clip
- Asch Conformity Video Clip
The clip below is not from the original experiment in 1951, but an acted version for television from the 1970s.
Factors Affecting Conformity
- Factors Affecting Conformity
In further trials, Asch (1952, 1956) changed the procedure (i.e., independent variables) to investigate which situational factors influenced the level of conformity(dependent variable). His results and conclusions are given below: