Chancellor Martin

10/30/19

Psych 1010

Asch Conformity Experiment

1. What are the details of the study?

Asch designed a study where he wanted to see if he could influence the

answers that participants gave when prompted with a question. He got together a

number of people in a room, and then asked them to compare the lengths of

lines in order to see which one was the same length as the sample, like so:

What the participants didn’t know was that the other people in the room would all

be colluding with the experimenter, or in other words they would be his

“confederates”. The participant that was being tested would always be seated

last, so they would know what the other people answered before they went. They

were also told that the thing they were being tested on was their vision, so as not

to tip them to what they were really being tested on.

2. What are the scientific findings?

“On average, about one third of the participants placed in this situation

went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials”
 (McLeod, S. A. (2018, Dec 28)). “Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of

participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never

conformed.”(McLeod, S. A. (2018, Dec 28)).

3. What are the real life implications?

It would appear that a significant portion of the people in the study

conformed at least once, with a third of them conforming every time. This would

lead us to believe that it is very common for people to go along with the majority,

even if they are clearly wrong. It’s something that we should all keep in mind,

because it could lead people to do things that they feel are wrong, simply

because they don’t want to “stand out” or something like that. We should make

more of an effort to encourage people to be leaders, and do the things that they

feel are right, rather than fall back on the opinions and actions of others.

Bibliography
1. (Source on image)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychology#/media/File:Asch_experiment.pn

2. McLeod, S. A. (2018, Dec 28). Solomon Asch - Conformity Experiment.

Retrieved Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html