Conformity: Asch's Line Study

Solomon Asch (1951) conducted one of the most famous experiments in social psychology to investigate the extent to which people will conform to a group, even when the group is clearly wrong. His study demonstrated the powerful effect of normative social influence on behaviour.

---

Asch's Study (1951)

Aim

To investigate whether individuals would conform to a group's incorrect answer on a simple visual judgement task, even when the correct answer was obvious.

Method

• 123 male participants from the USA were tested individually
• Each participant was placed in a group with 6–8 confederates (people secretly working for the researcher who had been told what answers to give)
• The group was shown a series of lines and asked to judge which comparison line (A, B, or C) matched a standard line in length
• The correct answer was always obvious
• On 12 out of 18 trials (the "critical trials"), the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer
• The real participant always answered second to last (so they heard the confederates' wrong answers before giving their own)

Results