Asch study (1951):
What did Asch believe was the problem with Sherif’s conformity experiment?
There was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment and how could
people conform if there was no right answer. (Just a reminder – Sherif’s experiment was
the experiment with the dot and how far people believed it moved).
What did Asch’s study entail?
Asch performed a lab experiment where 123 male American undergraduates were told
they would be preforming a line judgement task. In a room 7 confederates and one genuine
participant would all be asked which line (a, b or c) matched line x. Before the experiment
the confederates agreed in advance what answer they would be saying ( this would be an
obviously wrong answer). The real participant would be sat at the end of the row or less
Variations: often second to last to ensure they have heard the confederates answers. Once hearing
everyone else’s answer Asch wanted to see if they conformed with what was said.
Group size- Asch wanted to know if
the size of the group was more What was the aim?
important than the agreement of
the group. Asch found that with 3 To investigate the extent to whether social pressure from a majority group could affect a
confederates, conformity to the person to conform.
wrong answer rose to 31.8%.
What were the results?
however adding more confederate
made little to no difference There were 18 trails in total. About one third (37%) of the participants in each trail
conformed. Three quarters (75%) conformed on at least one trail.
Unanimity- he told the participant
to write down what he though What are the issues with this experiment?
instead of saying it out loud like the
confederates. This made conformity The participants- the participants were all male American undergraduates. Society consists
go down by a quarter. of a wide variety of people and who is to say how the participants would conform if there
were women involved. They were also a similar age. This is not helpful because ages vary in
Task difficulty- he made the lines the real world. The elderly may be less likely to conform and students could feel more
more similar in length. This caused inclined to agree with them. they are American so this experiment does not apply to the
conformity to increase. This shows rest of the world.
informational social influence
played a role. The task became Lab experiment- this is an artificial environment. Which means judgement can be clouded
more difficult making the participant as this is very suspicious and does not replicate the real world. The line experiment itself is
look to others for help and assume not something you would experience on your day to day business making it not very
they are right because they believe applicable.
they know better. Ethics- the real participant was deceived. E.g being the only true participant, doesn’t know
real intentions of experiment, seating plan. This means they could not give informed
consent. The participant should leave the experiment in the same state they entered
(protection of participants) however this may not have occurred as the participant may
have left feeling embarrassed or stupid.
Application- this experiment only took into account a school setting with participants who
have similar knowledge, background ,age and the same sex and ethnicity. In reality this
cannot be transferred to real world use as the real world has more diversity.
A somewhat small sample size.
What did Asch believe was the problem with Sherif’s conformity experiment?
There was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment and how could
people conform if there was no right answer. (Just a reminder – Sherif’s experiment was
the experiment with the dot and how far people believed it moved).
What did Asch’s study entail?
Asch performed a lab experiment where 123 male American undergraduates were told
they would be preforming a line judgement task. In a room 7 confederates and one genuine
participant would all be asked which line (a, b or c) matched line x. Before the experiment
the confederates agreed in advance what answer they would be saying ( this would be an
obviously wrong answer). The real participant would be sat at the end of the row or less
Variations: often second to last to ensure they have heard the confederates answers. Once hearing
everyone else’s answer Asch wanted to see if they conformed with what was said.
Group size- Asch wanted to know if
the size of the group was more What was the aim?
important than the agreement of
the group. Asch found that with 3 To investigate the extent to whether social pressure from a majority group could affect a
confederates, conformity to the person to conform.
wrong answer rose to 31.8%.
What were the results?
however adding more confederate
made little to no difference There were 18 trails in total. About one third (37%) of the participants in each trail
conformed. Three quarters (75%) conformed on at least one trail.
Unanimity- he told the participant
to write down what he though What are the issues with this experiment?
instead of saying it out loud like the
confederates. This made conformity The participants- the participants were all male American undergraduates. Society consists
go down by a quarter. of a wide variety of people and who is to say how the participants would conform if there
were women involved. They were also a similar age. This is not helpful because ages vary in
Task difficulty- he made the lines the real world. The elderly may be less likely to conform and students could feel more
more similar in length. This caused inclined to agree with them. they are American so this experiment does not apply to the
conformity to increase. This shows rest of the world.
informational social influence
played a role. The task became Lab experiment- this is an artificial environment. Which means judgement can be clouded
more difficult making the participant as this is very suspicious and does not replicate the real world. The line experiment itself is
look to others for help and assume not something you would experience on your day to day business making it not very
they are right because they believe applicable.
they know better. Ethics- the real participant was deceived. E.g being the only true participant, doesn’t know
real intentions of experiment, seating plan. This means they could not give informed
consent. The participant should leave the experiment in the same state they entered
(protection of participants) however this may not have occurred as the participant may
have left feeling embarrassed or stupid.
Application- this experiment only took into account a school setting with participants who
have similar knowledge, background ,age and the same sex and ethnicity. In reality this
cannot be transferred to real world use as the real world has more diversity.
A somewhat small sample size.
