Asch's explanation

• What study did Asch carry out?

  He told people they were having a vision test and gave them a line with three others next to it and said to choose the line (a,b,c) that matched line x. A group of confederates would give the obvious wrong answer to see if others would conform.
• How could Asch's study support NSI?

  Non-actors chose the wrong answer to fit in with the majority (the confederates).
• How could Asch's study support the ISI?

  Non-actors believed that the majority (the confederates) were right as they all chose the same answer, so they did too.
• What were Asch's results?

  Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On the critical trials 37% (about one third) of the response made the the true participants were incorrect, i.e., they had conformed to the incorrect decision given by the majority. 5% of the participants conformed on every trial, 74% conformed on at least one critical trial but 25% never conformed on any of the trials.