Asch (1951)

• Aim- Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious.
• Method-

  • Participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8 
  • Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines
  • Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length
  • In each group there was only one genuine (naive) participant the remaining were confederates
  • The genuine participant was seated second to last and did not know the other participants were fake participants
  • The fake confederate participants all gave the same incorrect answer
  • Confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails
• Results-

  • On average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials.
  • Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed.
  • In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.
• Conclusion-

  • When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought “peculiar.
  • Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).