Image: Psych Yogi
It happens, at least once in our lives, to find ourselves in the situation of agreeing with the rest of the group, although in reality we are not. This process has been called conformism or majority influence, and it refers to the way in which the small group in which we are inserted influences our personal way of seeing reality. Therefore, we are more concerned with adapting to the judgment of others than with expressing our opinion.
In the experiment carried out by Asch in 1956, even a banal opinion, without any positive or negative consequences for the subject, was strongly influenced by the mistaken opinion of the majority. In this Psychology-Online article, we will discover together Asch’s experimentthus delving into majority influence and conformity.
What is the Asch experiment
What is Asch’s experiment? Let’s see what is the social conformity according to Solomon Asch through the following procedure that he himself designed:
- The experimental protocol provided for 8 subjects, of which 7 of the researcher’s collaborators met in a laboratory, without the knowledge of the eighth or experimental subject, so it was presented as a normal visual discrimination exercise.
- The experimenter presented them with tokens with three lines of different lengths in decreasing order, while another line was drawn on another token, with a length equal to the first line of the first token.
- The subjects were then asked, starting with the accomplices, which was the corresponding line on the two cards. After a couple of normal repetitions, in the third series of questions the accomplices began to answer in a consistent and clearly erroneous manner.
In this article, we tell you more about the.
Example of Asch experiment
Imagine that you are in an Asch experiment with six other people. The experimenter explains that you will be participating in a study on perceptual judgment and asks you to tell him or her which of the three lines in the figure corresponds to the standard line. It’s easy to see that line 2 is identical to the standard line and it’s natural for the five people before you to give that answer.
The next comparison test is also easy and you prepare for what seems like a simple test, but the third test leaves you perplexed. Although the correct answer seems well defined, the first person gives the wrong answer. When the second person also gives the same answer, you take a good look at the cards again.
The third person follows the first two. You’re left with your mouth open, you start to sweat and you wonder what’s going on. Are they blind or am I?” The fourth and fifth person repeat what the others have said. Then the experimenter addresses you. What you are experiencing is a epistemological dilemma: “What is the truth? What my colleagues say or what my eyes see?”
In this example we can summarize Asch’s experiment and how he analyzes majority influence and conformity.
Objectives of Asch’s experiment
The goal of Asch’s experiment was to study the social conditions that induce the individual to resist or conform to group pressures when he expresses an opinion contrary to the evidence. The basic hypothesis of his experiment was that being a member of a group is a sufficient condition to modify the actions and, to some extent, also the visual judgments and perceptions of a person.
What is the Asch effect? The experiment focused on possibility of influencing perceptions and in the evaluations of objective data, without resorting to false information about reality or obvious objective distortions. Find out what it is.
Conclusions from the Asch experiment
Many students experienced this conflict by participating in Asch’s experiments. Those who were subjected to the experiment alone gave correct answers in more than 99% of the tests. Asch wondered whether subjects would be willing to state what they would otherwise have denied if several participants had given the same wrong answer.
Although some people never settled, three-quarters did so at least once. In the end, 37% of the answers were appropriate, or they trusted the answers of others. Of course, this means that in 63% of the time the subjects did not conform.
The experiments show that most people tell the truth even when others do not, but, despite the independence displayed by many test participants, Asch’s sense of conformity was as clear as the correct answers to his questions.
The fact that young, intelligent, well-intentioned people are willing to call black white is a worrying situation. It makes us doubt our educational systems and the values that guide our behavior (Asch, 1955)
The test results are surprising because they imply a undiscounted pressure to conformsince in Asch’s experiment there were no rewards for team play or punishments for .
Where the Asch experiment can be applied
Asch’s experiment clearly demonstrates the power of influence of the majority. Participants allow themselves to be influenced by the judgment of the majority, even though said judgment is contrary to their own perception.
Although the small sample used for the study and its homogeneity cannot make the results reached universal, Asch’s experiment, repeated over time with different variables, has the merit that paved the way for other very important social psychology studies.
In fact, Asch’s procedure became standard in hundreds of subsequent experiments. Additionally, in 1962, Solomon Asch joined the American television show “Candid Camera” to demonstrate how quickly a basic social normlike people standing in an elevator, could be reversed with the agreement of the group. Imagine all the behaviors you could achieve with deception through the power of social pressure.
In this article, we invite you to discover others.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to The Asch Experiment: Majority Influence and Conformitywe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- Myers, D. G. (2009). Social psychology. Milan: McGraw-Hill.