Asch experiment ethical issues. Ethics Asch's experimental method), due to the — Free Essays 2022-10-09
Asch experiment ethical issues
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The Asch experiment, also known as the Asch conformity experiments, was a series of psychological experiments conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a group could influence an individual's perception of reality. The experiments have been widely studied and have had a significant impact on the field of social psychology, but they have also raised a number of ethical concerns.
One of the main ethical issues with the Asch experiment is the use of deception. Participants in the experiment were not informed of the true purpose of the study, and were led to believe that they were participating in a vision test. This lack of informed consent is a clear violation of ethical standards, as participants were not given the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether or not to participate in the study.
Another ethical issue is the potential for harm to participants. While the Asch experiment did not involve any physical harm to participants, it did expose them to psychological stress and discomfort. In some cases, participants were made to feel foolish or inadequate by the group, which could have had negative effects on their self-esteem and mental well-being.
A third ethical concern is the potential for the Asch experiment to be used to justify unethical behavior. The experiment has been used to argue that individuals are more likely to conform to group pressure than to stand up for their own beliefs, which could be used to justify unethical actions such as mob violence or discrimination.
Despite these ethical concerns, the Asch experiment has also had a number of important contributions to the field of social psychology. It has provided valuable insights into the ways in which social pressure can influence individual behavior and has led to a greater understanding of the factors that influence conformity.
In conclusion, the Asch experiment raises a number of ethical concerns, including the use of deception, the potential for harm to participants, and the potential for the experiment to be used to justify unethical behavior. However, it has also made important contributions to the field of social psychology and has helped to increase our understanding of the ways in which social pressure can influence individual behavior.
What are methological issues in asch's study?
Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line A, B or C was most like the target line. In the face of uncertainty, people turn to others for information about how to respond. What does ambiguous mean in Asch experiment? The experimental stimuli consisted of a standard line and three comparison lines. Why do humans conform? The experiment was simulating prison environment. The conclusion of the experiment was that, people with power tend to abuse authority and it shows how titles and roles affects how a person act towards one and another. Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands.
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Majority Influence
Nicole has experience working in centres, clinics, and public schools providing therapeutic services to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder, learning difficulties and behavioural issues as well as providing training and support for families, caregivers and teachers. The results showed that the participants were very accurate, giving the correct answers 98% of the time. Retrieved from Image credit: tarykettle. The naive participant, however, had no inkling that the other students were not real participants. Groups, leadership and men. Like most psychological experiment results, the conclusions and results were grossly distorted as it filtered out into the public domain.
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Ash Conformity Experiments: Variation & Issue
In terms of a current example, we can see how conformity and groupthink may be affecting our It is important to always remain free thinkers and stand up for what we believe in, without fear of judgment or ridicule. He believed that the main problem with If the participant gave an incorrect answer it would be clear that this was due to group pressure. This was repeated for a number of weeks until by 11 months old, Little Albert would immediately burst into tears and show signs of fear whenever the white rat was presented to him, thus producing a conditioned phobia. The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task. Asch proposed two models to account for these results: The configural model and the algebraic model see Figure 1.
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What are the ethical concerns in Asch's conformity study?
The experiment concluded that people conform for two main reasons: they want to fit in with the group normative influence and because they believe the group is more informed than they are informational influence. Stanford Prison Experiment Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo. This involves making the participant understand the research subject and methods to be used fully before giving consent. Well, it had been tried years after the experiment. A minority of one against a unanimous majority.
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Unethical Experiments in Psychology
The term "group" for the purposes of this assignment as been defined as a formal group which has been established by an Utopi A Colony Of Human Virtue And Happiness Utopia is a thing every modern civilization strives for. The experiment led volunteers to believe they were administering increasingly painful and dangerous electric shocks to another volunteer for the purposes of a study on memory. However, one problem in comparing this study with Asch is that very different types of participants are used. However, conformity can have more serious consequences in the real world, especially since levels of conformity are presumed to be much higher in real world situations than in laboratory settings. When just one confederate was present, there was virtually no impact on participants' answers.
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Was the asch conformity experiment ethical?
The Little Albert Experiment. Asch had a control experiment without fake participants. Once the participants were debriefed and could see the confederate was okay their stress levels decreased. The guards were given sunglasses to make them feel more powerful and have a mask to hide behind and the prisoners had chains put on their legs so they can feel a loss of freedom. He contends that the strict scientific nature of the study is useful, as it tests raw conformity and doesn't allow for any other variables to factor in. Behavioral Science, 8 1 , 34.
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Asch’s Study, Milgram Experiment, and Stanford Prison Experiment Essay Example
Stimuli in the real world are more ambiguous than those in a lab setting. The researchers also failed to decondition Albert to the stimuli he was afraid of, which should have been done after the experiment. Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment. The real participant always answered last. Yet, this is only a slightly effective resolution as participants could decline this which further places the researcher in a difficult position, since they failed to gain proper informed consent at the start. As an attempted solution to this, Milgram collected consent during the debriefing and stated the full details of the study. After a few trials, however, they unanimously started giving the incorrect answer to see if this would affect what the real participant said.
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The Asch Conformity Experiments and Social Pressure
In order to prevent such extreme circumstances from occurring again, ethics codes have highlighted issues around participant harm. In their version of the experiment, they introduced a dissenting disagreeing confederate wearing thick-rimmed glasses — thus suggesting he was slightly visually impaired. What are the ethical issues of the Milgram experiment? This suggests that some conformity is due to demand characteristics and not the presence of the group. The study also provides an examples of stimulus generalization.  Research has also shown that conformity decreases if people have support from at least one other individual in a group. After the line task was presented, each student verbally announced which line either 1, 2, or 3 matched the target line.
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Asch Conformity Experiment
Across 396 trials, only one participant conformed. In interviews he conducted following the trials, Asch found that those that answered incorrectly, in conformance with the group, believed that the answers given by the Confederates were correct, some thought that they were suffering a lapse in perception for originally thinking an answer that differed from the group, while others admitted that they knew that they had the correct answer, but conformed to the incorrect answer because they didn't want to break from the majority. On 12 of the 18 trials, confederates unanimously gave a wrong answer to the task either chose a longer or shorter line than the original line. It would be devastating to take part in a psychology research with other people that you think they are also participant but they are fake participants who are aware of what to expect. It is a principle or code which governs what and how we do things Mutch, 2005.
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What are the ethical concerns in Asch?
Also, such responses persisted over a period of time. The British Psychology Society BPS expresses that all psychologists must run risk assessments prior to carrying out their studies. This can act as a challenge to any research, as it prevents studies that attempt to gain knowledge into certain aspects which may include the harming of those involved. . Support for this comes from studies in the 1970s and 1980s that show lower conformity rates e. On average, the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed. In asch's study the is the ecological validity? Asch Conformity Video Clip Asch Conformity Video Clip The clip below is not from the original experiment in 1951, but an acted version for television from the 1970s.
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