Asch’s research into conformity

• What’s the aim of asch’s (1951) study?

  To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in situations where the answer is certain (obvious).
• What is Asch’s baseline procedure?

  123 american male ppts were asked to compare 3 different lines in length, to a standard line. One line was clearly the same length as the standard line while the other 2 lines were substantially different (clearly wrong). They were tested in groups of 6-8 where only one was genuine ppt while the others were confederates.
• what are the baseline findings of asch’s study?

  ppts conformed to confederates 36.8 % of the time.

  but there were individual differences, as 25% of all participants did not conform at all.
• What are the 3 conformity variables as found by asch?

  1. unanimity
  2. group size
  3. task difficulty
• what is he group size variable and what were the finding?


  procedure: varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15. Findings: Social loafing decreases as group size increases, but only up to a certain point. with 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8% but decreased and levelled off as confederates increased.
• what is the unanimity variable and the findings?

  procedure: added the presence of a dissenting confederate.

  findings: the naive ppt conformity decreased to less than 1/4 of the original conformity. the presence of the dissenter freed the naive ppt, even if their answer was still wrong (social support).
• what is the task difficulty variation and its findings?

  procedure: made the comparison lines more similar to the stimulus/standard line. so the line-judging task was harder.

  findings: since the task was more ambiguous, conformity increased. Naive ppt looked for guidance since they thought they were wrong