Asch (1955)

AIM: To examine the idea of NSI and whether an individual is likely to conform in an unambiguous situation: where the correct answer is always obvious.

METHOD: Asch recruited 123 male students from Swarthmore College in America. The participants were led to believe that they were taking part in a vision test to hide the true aim of the experiment. Asch placed the real participants in a room with six to eight confederates (actors), where they were seated second from last. Asch used a line judgement task where the participants had to say, out loud, which line (A, B or C) matched a target line in length. There were 18 trials in total; in 12 of the trials, known as the critical trials, the confederates gave the same incorrect answer. The experimenter recorded the responses for each participant to see whether or not they would conform to the majority view, even though the answer was clearly incorrect.

RESULTS: On average, 36.8% of the participants accepted the misleading majority answer on the critical trials. However, Asch also noted that there were differences among the participants. For example, 26% of participants remain completely independent and never conformed, while 74% of participants conformed at least once.

CONCLUSION: In the post-experiment interviews, many of the participants said that they went along with the majority in order to fit in, despite knowing that the majority was incorrect. This demonstrates that the participants conformed due to NSI, as they changed their public behaviour but not their private beliefs.

EVALUATING ASCH (1955)

POPULATION VALIDITY: One issue with Asch’s experiment is that it lacks population validity. Asch’s sample consisted of 123 American students from Swarthmore College in America. Consequently, we are unable to say whether other populations, e.g. females and non-college students, would conform in the same way. Therefore, further research is required in order to determine whether the results of this study can be generalised to other populations.

ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY: Another issue with Asch’s experiment is that it lacks ecological validity. Asch devised a simple line judgement task to examine whether or not people would conform. However, this task does not reflect conformity in everyday life, and real-life cases of conformity (e.g. peer pressure to smoke or drink alcohol) often carry far more profound consequences. Consequently, it is difficult to apply the results of Asch’s experiment to the real world and further research, in a naturalistic setting, is required to determine whether or not Asch’s results apply beyond the laboratory.

LABORATORY EXPERIMENT: However, one strength of Asch’s experiment is that it took place in a highly-controlled laboratory setting. Asch devised a set of standardised procedures and materials to examine conformity within the laboratory. Consequently, many psychologists (e.g. Perrin and Spencer, 1981) have replicated Asch’s experiment to examine conformity in range of different situations. Therefore, Asch’s research has provided a platform for a whole area of research that has developed our knowledge and understanding of conformity, and ultimately social psychology.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES: One final issue with Asch’s research is that his method is ethically questionable. Asch deliberately deceived his participants and said that they were taking part in a vision test; however, it must be noted that Asch had to deceive his participants in order to avoid demand characteristics and achieve valid results. Furthermore, Asch’s participants were also subject to a particularly stressful situation and were not protected from psychological harm. Unethical experiments can potentially damage the reputation of psychology as a science and deter people from taking part in psychological research that has the potential to develop our knowledge and understanding of human behaviour.