Asch Conformity Experiment

• Asch (1951) is a key study that investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform

Method

• A laboratory experiment was used

Procedure

• The experiment studied conformity through a line judgement task
• A naïve participant was placed in a room with seven confederates
• The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task
• The participant did not know the other participants were confederates, and believed they were real participants
• Each person had to state aloud which comparison line (1,2, or 3) was most like the target line
• It was obvious which line was the right answer
• The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave his answer last
• In some trials, the seven confederates gave the wrong answer
• There were 18 trials in total and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trials, called the "critical" trials
• Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view.
• Participants were male university students

Results

• Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view
• On average, about one third (32%) of the participants conformed with the incorrect majority
• Over the 18 trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once
• 25% of participants never conformed

Conclusion

• People were likely to give the wrong answer even if they knew it to be untrue
• Participants did this if giving the right answer meant deviating from the norm
• When interviewed, most participants said they did not believe their conforming answers, but went along to avoid being ridiculed
• A few of them believed the group's answers were correct