Asch - Conforming

• Asch (1951/55) Baseline study - an experiment to find out to what extent people would conform to others
• Asch - Procedure

  123 male undergraduates

  18 trials - lab study

  Showed participants two large white cards at a time

  One card was a 'standard line' and the other card had three comparison lines

  One of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other two were all substantially different

  The participant was asked which of the three lines matched up to the standard

  Each naïve participant was tested individually with a group between 6-8 confederates

  The naïve participant was not aware that the others were confederates
• Variations - Group Size

  With three confederates, conformity rate to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%

  Further numbers had little affect on

  A small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted
• Variations - Unanimity

  Asch introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others

  Either giving another wrong answer or the right one

  This resulted in conformity rates reducing to 25%

  The presence of a dissenter allowed the naïve participant to act more independently

  For conformity rates to be higher, the majority needs to be unanimous
• Variation - Task difficulty

  Asch made the standard line similar in length to the comparison lines

  Conformity increased due to this

  ISI plats a significant role
• Asch - Findings

  During the first few trials - all confederates gave the correct answer but then started making errors

  All confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer

  Out of 12 trials, 8 were named 'critical trials' where the confederate gave the wrong answer

  The naïve participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time

  25% of participants did not conform on any trials, 75% conformed at least once

  After the trial, the participants were interviewed and said they conformed to avoid rejection