Asch (1955) Opinions and Social Pressure

Context studies: both used ambiguous stimuli.

1. Jenness (1932): Jar of beans participants asked to give estimate individually & grouply, then asked to change own estimate or go with group estimate. Majority changed own estimates closer to groups

2. Sherif (1935): Autokinetic effect (light) - participants give estimates (direction and measurement) individually and then exposed to 2 others. Estimates converged to group norm (average of individual estimates)

Issues - Ambiguous stimuli used - little known about conformity in unambiguous situations

Aims: - Investigate effects of group pressure on individuals in unambiguous situations

- When confronted with an obviously incorrect answer, would individuals give an answer perpetuated this error or give an independent response

•  123 male undergraduate students from 4 American uni's - volunteers, paid $3 to take part    
• thought it was a 'psychological experiment on visual judgement' (decieved)              
• tested in groups of 7-9 (all were confederates except for 1 naive participant)                
• naive participant sat last to second or last                                                           
• shown 2 cards (1st card = 1 standard line, 2nd card = 3 lines of varying length)          
• had to state aloud which line matched standard line                                                 
• each experienced 18 trials (12 critical - wrong a's + 6 control - correct a's)               
• method = lab based study (repeated measures design)                                         
• IV=confederates' a's, DV=level of conformity                   

Additional procedures:                                                                                       

• size of group = 1-15 people                                                                                   
• truthful partner (either a confederate or another naive participant)                         
• dissenting, inaccurate participant (confederate disagrees with majority + naive participant)  
• partner who changes mind (gives correct a's for 1st 6 trials + then joins with majority) 
• partner who leaves (gives correct a's for 1st 6 trials + then leaves for important app)

• Control study: mistakes made less than 1% of the time - confirms stimulus lines were unambiguous                                                                                                 
• Critical trials: found participants gave wrong answers 36.8% of the time - all critical trials (63.2% responses = right)                                                                             
• Individual differences: (how much each participant conformed) 25% participants gave right answer = no conformity (75% participants conformed at least once or more)         
• some participants agreed with majority most critical trials                                             
• whether participant conformed or not, behaviour = constant                                                                                         
• Independent (not conformed) reasons: "staunch confidence in own judgement", "capacity to recover from doubt + to re-establish their equilibrium", felt it was "their obligation to call the play as they saw it"       
• Conformed reasons: believed "I am wrong and they are right", "not to spoil results", "victim of an optical illusion", thought they were 'deficient' (useless)                                                        

Results from both baseline study + variations suggest:                                       

• strong tendency to conform to group pressure even in unambiguous situations
• pressure from majority reduced when majority = smaller                                          
• pressure to conform reduced by precense of dissenter (disagree) even if dissenter = wrong                                                                                                                      
• conformity depends upon majority being unanimous                                                         e.g. dissenter agree's with majority - more participants conformed         

Strengths:

• Increased internal validity - removed ambiguous stimulus, participants didn't know aim of study, reduces demand characteristics
• Men do conform to the extent Asch found

Weaknesses:

• Androcentric (only males used - gender biased) 
• Ethnocentric (only americans used - culture biased)
• Sample biased (only students used)
• Historically biased (1950's people used)
• Deception - real aims hidden in order to avoid demand charecteristics
• Lack of informed consent - consented to a different study (deception)
• Harm caused - embarassed after debriefed
• Reliability issues - results were not replicated
• Validity issues - low in ecological validity + mundane realism + low in (external) population validity (sample is limited and unrepresentative)

• Sherif (1935)
• Neto (1995) + Eagly (1998) - found that women were actually more conformist than men.  It could be because they have different short-term goals. This could be because they are more interested than men in maintaining good social relationships. Eagly found that they appeared to be more conformist in a lab experiment.
• Perrin & Spencer (1980) - suggested Asch’s high conformity rates due to research was conducted in USA in 1950’s = era of highly conformist society. They repeated Asch’s study in Britain in late 1960’s + found out of 396 critical trials only 1 student conformed. Contradicts Asch’s study as it shows the conformity levels Asch found due to era + country. But they used science students. 
• Doms and Avermaet (1981) thought that this was because scientists might have self-confidence about estimating line length.
• Perrin & Spencer (1981) - used youths on probation to repeat Asch study + found same levels of conformity. Supports Asch's but 1 contradiction = confederates used in study were probation officers which could have meant that youths felt highly pressured into conforming.