Experiments: The Asch Test

I always found teaching “the experimental method” in sociology a little dull because there were relatively few examples I could use to illustrate the genre.

And most of what were available seemed to be created by psychopaths psychologists.

It obviously didn’t help that a couple of the really good examples weren’t something that could be easily replicated in the classroom. There are also, apparently, “rules and regulations” covering exactly who you can and can’t keep locked up against their will – or put “in the hole” (a broom cupboard, as it was more-conventionally known) when they fail to follow simple instructions.

To which my “Who knew?” response didn’t seem to reassure “The Powers That Be”.

And once the Engineering Department rejected my entirely-reasonable request for a Shock Machine on the basis that I had been repeatedly warned about “introducing instruments of torture into the classroom” (it went against College Policy. Apparently) I was left with little or no option but to submit my students to an Asch Test.

Which I’m glad I did, because it turned-out to be fun for all involved. With the possible exception of the student victims.

If you’re not familiar with the background, I’ve scanned a copy of Solomon Asch’s short (only 4 pages!) “Opinion’s and Social Pressures” in which he describes the basic experiment and it’s variations. In simple terms a small group of respondents were asked to say which of three lines of varying height – one longer, one shorter and one the same length – were a match for a fourth line.

All but one of the respondents were in on the game in which, for the first couple of rounds, they would all answer correctly. For most subsequent rounds the first respondent would answer incorrectly and their confederates would match this answer. The “test”, of course, was whether the experimental subject (otherwise known as “The Victim”) would trust the evidence of their own eyes and go against the group decision.

Overall, Asch found that around one-third of the test subjects gave-in to the (incorrect) consensus even though most were perfectly well-aware the majority were in the wrong. As you’ll discover if you read the document I’ve taken so much time and trouble to find and distribute, under slightly different conditions – such as when there were two experimental subjects in the group – the results were radically different.

While the original Asch Tests were exploring the nature of conformity and social pressure, for my sociology students I used it to introduce and explain some of the basic mechanics of experimentation (dependent and independent variables, confounding variables and the like) in a way they could partly understand by experiencing the process. This was not, of course, always perfect.

When I ran the experiment I tended to have around 15 – 20 confederates in the classroom (which is way too many but I wanted to give everyone the chance to experience the test) and just one experimental subject. They were always the last person to return to class after a break. This allowed me to brief the confederates about how to respond to the test, select a test subject randomly and not feel too guilty about selecting one of my students for the deception. They deserved it for daring to return late to class.

In the Good Olde Days of Not Having Computers in the Classroom (a slight exaggeration. I did have a single 386 machine I’d managed to blag from the Computing Suite when they were upgrading their stuff) I had to create the Test Cards out of cardboard and sticky-back plastic.

I didn’t strictly need the latter, but saw it as an ironic commentary on the state of education at the time. You can probably tell why I never made it out of the classroom and into the ranks of Senior Management. I’d have been happy with Junior Management, but alas it was Not To Be (I am of course joking. I would not have been happy with Junior Management).

I do recall laminating the cardboard under the (mistaken) belief I would need to use them more than a few times.

The reason I didn’t, despite the Test being something the students enjoyed, was that it just took too much time out of the teaching scheme. When I started teaching A-level Sociology we had around 6 hours of class contact time a week. By the time I moved on to explore my potential as an author and filmmaker jacked it all in, this had been cut to 4 hours a week – just not enough time to indulge in fanciful educational games. This, in a roundabout way, is why I’ve dug around for what’s probably the next best thing to being there: film of other people being there.

The first clip consists of a couple of two-minute examples of the Asch Test.

From the clothes and hairstyles the first looks like it’s from the 1970’s, the second a few decades later – the reason for including both being to show that even though generations change the need to conform stays fairly constant. If you’re a sociologist that’s something you might want to develop in relation to ideas like social structure and conformity, but it’s your choice.

The second, coming in at around 5 minutes, is perhaps more useful and interesting for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, it’s introduced by Philip Zimbardo, who explains the basis of the Asch Test. This may or may not be a good reason for watching, depending on your view of Philip Zimbardo.

The second is more compelling. The clip not only shows an example of the classic Asch Test, 5 confederates and 1 test subject, it also demonstrates some of the variations introduced by Asch. In particular it shows what happens when the test subject has a partner (Spoiler Alert: they feel much more comfortable going against “the consensus”).

As an added bonus we hear from the test subjects themselves – what they were feeling during the test and why they tended to go with the majority flow.