{"id":808,"date":"2016-10-04T05:03:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T05:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/101psych.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2026-03-13T08:54:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T23:54:35","slug":"key-study-conformity-asch-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2016\/10\/04\/key-study-conformity-asch-1955\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Study: Conformity – Asch (1955)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background Information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humans are social animals, formign groups and strong bonds naturally. As such, it\u2019s not hard to see the many ways that belonging to a group is important. Conformity<\/strong> is one effect that can happen as a result of this need to belong. Conformity is when behaviour is modified in order to fit in with a larger group.<\/p>\n

Solomon Asch was not the first to investigate conformity, but his studies have become arguably the most influential in the field. Asch designed his experiments on the back of the findings of existing research that tended to find when given opinions contrary to their own, subjects would alter their own opinions so they would be in-line with the group majority.
\n[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA]\n

Methodology and Results <\/strong><\/p>\n

For the following experiments Asch used the same experimental paradigm using the line length cards (which has come to be known as the Asch Paradigm). It involves matching one line with one from a group of three.<\/p>\n

Typical Experimental Condition <\/strong><\/p>\n

7 to 9 male college students get together in a room, but only one of them is a na\u00efve subject \u2013 the rest are confederates. i.e. the subject thinks everyone is just there like him, but in actual fact they all know what is going on. They sit in a row at a large desk and face the experimenter who holds up cards like those in figure 1. The subject is near the end of the line, so by the time they have given their response they have heard the responses of most of the group. The first two \u201ctrials\u201d the confederates give the right answer and it all appears a bit boring. On the third trial, however, they deliberately give the wrong answer. In total there are 18 trials, but only in 12 of these do the group deliberately give the wrong answer (when this happens it\u2019s called a \u201ccritical trial\u201d).<\/p>\n

In Asch\u2019s first experiment reported in his 1955 paper, there were 123 subjects from three different colleges. The results were as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. When alone: almost 100% accurate (<1% error rate)<\/li>\n
  2. When in the group, the subjects conformed 36.8% of the time<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In the results above, there was a range of individual variability:<\/p>\n