Solomon Asch’s Study on Conformity

Aim

The aim of this study was to discover how much the majority influences the decisions of individuals during an unambiguous task. Would the majority vote influence their own answer to the seemingly azygous option, or would they stick firmly to their view that they knew to be correct? How many individuals in the bunch would conform?

Procedures

A total of 123 American male undergraduates were given the test. In a group, participants were seated around a table and were shown a series of lines, the ‘standard’ line and the other possible answers. Within the group, all but one of the participants were confederates of the researcher. The confederates were told to give the same incorrect answer during 12 important trials. 18 trials were conducted overall. The ‘real’ participant was set-up to always be the last, or second-to-last one to answer.

Findings

During the 12 most important trials, 36.8% of the answers given by the ‘real’ participants were incorrect, effectively conforming to the wrong answers given by the unanimous confederates. Only 25% never gave a false answer, therefore showing that 75% conformed at least once.

To make sure that the stimulus lines were unambiguous, Asch conducted a controlled experiment that had no confederates giving false answers. The results showed that people do make mistakes 1% of the time.

Conclusions

The total results showed a surprisingly strong tendency to conform under group pressure, even in cases where the answer is clear. For Asch, the experiment revealed to him the important factor of there being conformity at all. However, the experiment also revealed to Asch that during two-thirds of his trials, the participants had remained independent, giving clear evidence that people can be unaffected by group pressure.

The study is used in most social psychological textbooks as evidence of people’s tendency to conform when faced with a unanimous majority, as well as shows evidence that they may also go against it.

Evaluation

I personally think it was a good experiment to determine the effect of social pressure on an individual. The good points were the way Asch made sure the lines were unambiguous, so confusion didn’t disrupt the experiment.