Solomon Asch – Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif: two social psychologies?

• Main Author: Janez Bečaj
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2000-09-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: conformism; social agreement; norms; groups; individual; social environment
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2000_3/becaj.pdf

There is almost no current textbook of social psychology, in which the chapter of conformism would not start with the description of the Asch's experiment with line-length and Sherif's experiment with auto kinetic effect. Social norm is the bonding topic of the two. Sherif is supposed to have shown the shaping of social norms, whereas Asch is supposed to have demonstrated how they are maintained through the pressure on the subject to conform. Both authors are usually cited together and because they are connected with the same phenomenon, one can get the impression that they are talking about two dimensions of the same socio-psychological topic, discussed from similar theoretical standpoints. But detailed analysis of both experiments and comparison of the cognitive models of the authors that led to these experiments suggest that such an impression could be wrong. In fact, two different theoretical models are in question, which have barely anything in common.