Experiments

Asch conformity 1956

When a group unanimously gave a clearly wrong answer on a simple line-matching task, some participants went along on some trials, but many stayed independent.

Social psychologyExperiment

Solomon E. Asch

Main paper: Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. a minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(9), 1–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093718

The question

Will people report what they see when a unanimous group says something different?

Design: experiment

The researchers set the conditions and compare outcomes between or within groups. Each profile says whether participants were randomly assigned.

Conditions varied the group's size and agreement, and the same task was also judged alone. This profile does not state how participants were assigned or give counts.

Asch's line-judgment setup, shown as conditions

Alone

  1. Judge lines without a group

Result reportedFew errors expected

Unanimous group

  1. Group states the same wrong answer first
  2. Participant answers

Result reportedSome participants yield

One correct partner

  1. Another person gives the right answer
  2. Participant answers

Result reportedYielding drops

Original diagram drawn for this site from the descriptions in the sources. It is a simplified summary, not a figure from the paper.

Procedure

Participants judged which of several comparison lines matched a standard line. Alone, this is easy. In the critical condition a group gave answers aloud before the participant, and on chosen trials the group unanimously gave the same wrong answer. The other members were arranged by the experimenter, which the participant did not know.

Asch compared conditions that changed the situation, such as the group's size and whether one other person gave the correct answer. He also interviewed participants afterward about why they answered as they did.

Findings

A substantial share of answers on critical trials followed the incorrect majority, and individuals differed widely: some never yielded, some yielded often. A partner who gave the correct answer lowered the rate of yielding. This profile gives no percentages.

In interviews, participants described a mix of doubt in their own judgment, a wish not to appear different and, for some, a belief that the group was right.

Interpretation

Asch emphasized that the results show both yielding and independence. He argued against the idea that people simply submit to groups, and he stressed that participants' experiences differed.

Limits on what it shows

  • The task was a simple perceptual judgment among strangers with no stakes. It does not show how people respond to pressure on values, health or politics.
  • Participants were college students in a laboratory with a staged group, so the setting differs from everyday group pressure.
  • A summary like 'a third conformed' hides the spread across individuals and conditions.

Ethics

Participants were deceived about the other group members and could feel uncomfortable disagreeing with a unanimous group. Fully informed consent was not possible before the session, so debriefing afterward and the right to withdraw matter.

Replication and reassessment

A unanimous majority and a correct partner are different social situations. The variation matters as much as the average yielding rate: independence was possible, and participants differed. Extending the result to another culture, era or kind of pressure needs additional evidence.

Think it through. An original practice question written for this site.

You want to know whether a dissenting teammate helps people resist group pressure. Which two conditions would you compare, and what would you hold constant?

Show a way to reason about it

Compare a unanimous group with a group that has one dissenter. Keep the task, the questions, the order of answers and the group size the same, so the dissenter is the only difference. Random assignment keeps participants' own tendencies from lining up with one condition.

Nothing you think or select here is recorded.

Textbook connection

Covered in this sectionOpenStax Psychology 2e, 12.4 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Section covers Asch's line-judgment studies.

Sources and access scope

Each label says how much of the source was opened while preparing this profile. An unopened source is listed so the claim can be checked, not because it was read.

  1. Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. a minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(9), 1–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093718Original researchNot inspected; citation only

    DOI for the monograph. The article text has not been inspected for this profile, so counts and percentages are omitted.

  2. Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/12-4-conformity-compliance-and-obedienceTextbook contextSelected textbook passages inspected

    Textbook context. The section describes Asch's line-judgment studies.