But I have always told you," said my grandmother, "that he had plenty of taste." "You would, of course," retorted my great-aunt, "say anything just to seem different from us." For, knowing that my grandmother never agreed with her, and not being quite confident that it was her own opinion which the rest of us invariably endorsed, she wished to extort from us a wholesale condemnation of my grandmother's views, against which she hoped to force us into solidarity with her own.

Purpose This paper aims to examine whether being shown a testimony alleging that the perpetrator of a crime was influenced by an accomplice has an impact on the severity of the sentence given to this accomplice. Design/methodology/approach A total of 119 participants read the summary of a case of armed robbery. Two experimental conditions were adopted: the presence of a testimony suggesting the accomplice’s influence on the perpetrator in committing the crime (versus no testimony). The participants were then asked what sentence they would give the accomplice and what sentence they would have given the perpetrator of the crime, who had in fact already been sentenced. The participants rated items relating to the explanation for the crime (perception that the perpetrator had been manipulated by the presumed accomplice) and to the presumed accomplice’s intent to commit the crime. Findings The participants showed themselves to be harsher towards the presumed accomplice when they were shown the testimony about his influence, which reduced the disparity with the sentence they would have given to the perpetrator of the crime. Analyses of mediation show that the participants shown the testimony (as opposed to those who were not) were more likely to say that the presumed accomplice manipulated the perpetrator of the crime, leading them to be more likely to attribute to the accomplice the intent to commit the crime and to be harsher towards him. Originality/value The results of this research are discussed with a focus on naïve interpretations of influence in the very specific context of legal adjudication.

Les descriptions qui sont faites des études de Asch sur l’influence sont très éloignées de ce qu’il a montré et écrit. Ces descriptions ne retiennent souvent qu’une expérience parmi toutes les variantes qu’il réalisa, ne rapportent qu’un résultat, ignorant les autres mesures et enfin elles négligent la théorie gestaltiste de Asch. Ces distorsions ont conduit à assimiler les recherches de Asch sur l’influence à la théorie dominante que Asch nomme la doctrine de la suggestion et à laquelle il s’est systématiquement opposé. L’objectif de ce texte est de restituer ces recherches dans l’histoire des théories de l’influence et d’exposer les vives critiques que Asch formulait contre la doctrine de la suggestion, contre l’idée d’influences asymétriques aliénantes et arbitraires pouvant se réaliser automatiquement.