Is The Asch Experiment Ethical?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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Finally,

Asch's research is ethically questionable

. … Although it is seen as unethical to deceive participants, Asch's experiment required deception in order to achieve valid results.

Was Asch's research ethnocentric?

How is Asch's line study ethnocentric? The main evaluation points for Asch's study involve ethical issues, historical/cultural context and the lab experiment method: The sample is limited as it was

all male (androcentric), American (ethnocentric)

.

What was wrong with the Asch conformity experiment?

Solomon Asch – Experiment

He believed that the main problem with Sherif's (1935) conformity experiment was

that there was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment

. How could we be sure that a person conformed when there was no correct answer?

Is Asch's study reliable?


Asch's results have been replicated several times so the results are reliable

. The results of the experiment in terms of conformity rates can, to some extent, explain why people conform to social and cultural norms in real life. Conformity may be universal to some degree but conformity rates vary cross-culturally.

Why was Asch's study ethical?

Asch's (1951) study

raises ethical issues of informed consent

. This is because the participants were told that the experiment was about visual perception rather than majority influence.

Why is Asch's line study ethnocentric?

The sample is limited as it was all male (androcentric), American (ethnocentric). This means

it lacks population validity

so that means caution should be taken when generalising the findings to the whole population.

What was Asch's hypothesis?

Asch hypothesized that

when confederates (fake participants) uniformly gave a particular response in a group setting, the lone true participant would feel pressure to conform to the group consensus

.

What did the Asch experiment prove?

The experiments revealed

the degree to which a person's own opinions are influenced by those of groups

. Asch found that people were willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer in order to conform to the rest of the group.

What did Solomon Asch's famous line experiment demonstrate?

Solomon Asch's experiment on group conformity demonstrated

that people will conform with a group

, even if they feel or know that the group is wrong.

What are 7 conditions that strengthen conformity?

Seven conditions that strengthen conformity: 1)

one feels insecure

, 2) group has at least three people, 3) group is unanimous, 4) _____________, 5) one has no prior commitment to a response, 6) group is watching, 7) less individualistic society.

What is a major problem with the original Milgram study?

What is a major problem with the original Milgram study?

Milgram lied to his respondents, making his study borderline unethical

. What is the major flaw in the Asch conformity study? Asch ignored the importance of several factors influencing conformity- race, class, and gender.

What is Asch's Configural model?

Asch proposed two models to account for these results: The configural model and the algebraic model (see Figure 1.1). The configural model

hypothesizes that people form a unified overall impression of other people

; the unifying forces shape individual elements to bring them in line with the overall impression.

What was the IV in Asch's study?

The independent variable in Asch's 1955 study was the

response of the confederates

and the dependent variable was the subject's response to the same question. The operational definition of conformity was the assent of the subject with the group majority (Asch, 1955).

What are the strengths of Asch's study?

Asch's conformity study has many strengths. Firstly,

it was a highly controlled experimental set-up

. There was a control group and a group with other people, meaning that any major difference in results is only going to be due to that one change. Asch had not expected to see such a high degree of conformity.

How did Milgram try to make the experiment as realistic as possible?

The procedure was

that the participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner' and who would be the ‘teacher

. ‘ The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram's confederates (pretending to be a real participant).

What are the ethical issues of the Milgram experiment?

The ethical issues involved with the Milgram experiment are as follows:

deception, protection of participants involved, and the right to withdrawal

. The experiment was deemed unethical, because the participants were led to believe that they were administering shocks to real people.

Amira Khan
Author
Amira Khan
Amira Khan is a philosopher and scholar of religion with a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology. Amira's expertise includes the history of philosophy and religion, ethics, and the philosophy of science. She is passionate about helping readers navigate complex philosophical and religious concepts in a clear and accessible way.