Solomon Asch Conformity Essay
American psychologist, Solomon Asch, conducted an experiment in 1951 on conformity on a group of students from Swarthmore College. The goal of this study was to observe how far an individual could be influenced by public pressure, and in the end, possibly pick incorrect answers that were valued on facts, universal knowledge, and personal belief. Asch believed that conformity was a process in which people are pressured to change their behavior for the sake of fitting in. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can play a major influence in society that ultimately it disregards an individual's own beliefs.
Asch’s experiment included 50 students total but had subgroups of 7 student participants who believed to be participating in a visual discrimination …show more content…
In this study what was prevalent was that 25 percent of participants remained independent throughout the trials, 50 percent conformed to the majority by at least the 6th trial and 5 percent conformed consistently in all 12 trials. Asch had used quantitative sampling method. Although he used 7 participants, he could argue that the strength of his experiment was in validity because Asch’s study was done in a controlled environment. This method of sampling made easier to compare and draw conclusions about the data. Asch could have conducted the study on a larger scale but this would be time consuming and expensive. Financial reasons may have limited the study and reduced the sample size. This could have also jeopardized the external validity of Asch's experiment because it wasn’t a fair representation of the general population. More importantly, a laboratory setting cannot accurately simulate a natural setting for group interactions to take place. To follow up with this study, researchers should consider increasing external validity by utilizing a natural setting rather than creating a false illusion that does not reflect a natural process. Another criticism is that Asch did not take into account social class, age, race and ethnicity, location, and background. He used all male students. Therefore, the sample was not as randomly assigned as it could have been. It would be
Asch’s experiment included 50 students total but had subgroups of 7 student participants who believed to be participating in a visual discrimination …show more content…
In this study what was prevalent was that 25 percent of participants remained independent throughout the trials, 50 percent conformed to the majority by at least the 6th trial and 5 percent conformed consistently in all 12 trials. Asch had used quantitative sampling method. Although he used 7 participants, he could argue that the strength of his experiment was in validity because Asch’s study was done in a controlled environment. This method of sampling made easier to compare and draw conclusions about the data. Asch could have conducted the study on a larger scale but this would be time consuming and expensive. Financial reasons may have limited the study and reduced the sample size. This could have also jeopardized the external validity of Asch's experiment because it wasn’t a fair representation of the general population. More importantly, a laboratory setting cannot accurately simulate a natural setting for group interactions to take place. To follow up with this study, researchers should consider increasing external validity by utilizing a natural setting rather than creating a false illusion that does not reflect a natural process. Another criticism is that Asch did not take into account social class, age, race and ethnicity, location, and background. He used all male students. Therefore, the sample was not as randomly assigned as it could have been. It would be