procedure

    Cards (15)

    • participants were told that they were taking part in a 'visual perception task'
    • they were tested with 7-9 participants
    • participants were shown 2 white cards- the first card showed the standard line and the second card showed 3 comparison line, with 1 being the same length as the standard line
    • there were 18 trials with 6 being real and 12 being fake
    • the group was asked what line was the same as or similar to the standard line
    • there were confederates and 1 real participant
    • Asch’s sample consisted of 50 male students from Swarthmore College in America
    • he placed on real naïve participants in a room with seven confederates (actors), who had agreed their answers in advance
    • The real participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other seven people were also real participants
    • The real participant always sat second to last.
    • In turn, each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was most like the standard line in length.
    • the correct answer was always obvious
    • Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials
    •  Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect
    • There was 123 participants all together