Asch’s Experiment In Social Psychology

Asch’s experiment is among the most popular in social psychology in relation to group conformity. The simplicity of the method and the generalizability of the conclusions are the basis of the studies that investigate the influences of a majority on the choices and even on the perception of the world of an individual.

Have we intrigued you? In the next few lines we will describe one of the simplest, most fascinating and illuminating experiments in the history of psychology: the Asch experiment.

Solomon Asch and his influence on social psychology

Solomon Asch was born in Warsaw in 1907. He is the main point of reference in social psychology for studies on conformity. He concentrated his research on the influence of the group on the individual, contributing to the formulation of concepts such as the halo effect and the primacy effect.

However, the experiment that marked his career was conducted in 1951. In this study, Asch hoped to show that individuals are capable of going against the grain when they realize that the majority are wrong.

But life, as we know, plays strange tricks … And, in fact, the results proved exactly the opposite. In the next few lines we will describe how the experiment was designed. Its simplicity and the implications it has had over time have forever changed the model of social influence studies.

Asch’s experiment: to what extent we allow ourselves to be influenced

Asch’s experiment was quite simple. Participants had to use the view to answer a multiple choice question. The procedure was as follows:

• Groups of 7-9 people were formed, where all, except the experimental subject, were accomplices.

• Subjects were presented with two cards: one with a reference line and the other with three lines of different lengths. In the latter case, one of the three lines had the same length as the reference line.

• In the early stages, accomplices gave the correct answer, but at some point they began to agree on the wrong answer. For example, if the line equal to the reference card was A, the accomplices answered C.

Logically one would think that, although everyone was wrong, the person responded with the solution that he considered correct. However, this was not the case: when accomplices agreed on a patently wrong answer, many experimental objects responded as did the rest of the group.

The paradigm of results

How is it possible? A task as simple as looking at a line and choosing which of the others is the identical one … There should be no margin for error, you see what you have in front of your eyes.

Yet, this is precisely Asch’s most important discovery, namely: many subjects claimed to see a line identical to that of reference despite being clearly different.

In this sense, not only the opinion of the individual was influenced by the response of the majority, but also his own physical perception. On the other hand, one of the criticisms leveled at the experiment argued that, being a rather trivial task, the subject could respond in agreement with the others for the simple fact of avoiding the fatigue of reasoning.

Reflections on the Asch experiment

The results of the experiment raised an important question for social psychology: To what extent are we willing to change our ideas, choices and even perceptions under the influence of others?

The basic setting of the experiment favors its application to everyday situations, such as group leisure activities, professional careers strongly influenced by family opinion and even feelings of social hatred such as racism or male chauvinism.

Putting aside the aspect of what we think is important and what is not; often, the manipulation of the system consists in trivializing some aspects of life in order to obtain the conformity of the individual.

We may all not want to go against the grain for the simple length of a line, but would we behave the same way in general elections ? For example, is fashion so important that it goes so far as to criticize that a man can wear a skirt?