Research into conformity

• Asch's line study (1956)


  123 male US undergraduate volunteers in a lab experiment
• Asch's line study procedure


  1. Participants were told it was a visual perception task

  2. Participants were seated around a table and asked to compare 3 lines of different lengths to a 'standard' line

  3. All the participants were confederates, with only 1 real participant

  4. The real participant always answered 2nd to last
• Asch's line study findings


  • Average conformity rate was 33%
  • 1/4 never conformed on any of the trials
  • 1/2 conformed on 6 or more
  • 1/20 conformed on all 12 critical trials
• After the trial Asch interviewed the participants and found that the majority of participants who conformed did so publicly, but continued to trust their own judgements privately to avoid disapproval (they showed compliance)