Throwback Thursday: Asch Conformity Experiment

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For our very first classic experiment discussion, we are going to look at Solomon Asch's Conformity study, which first took place in the 1950's. The purpose of the study was to see if an individual would conform their answer to a simple question to match a group, even when the other members of the group were giving an incorrect answer.

The design was very simple. He had a group of people in a room who were "in" on the experiment (also known as confederates). These people were a part of the experiment itself, so their behavior was not being measured.

Asch then brought in the actual study participant, who was under the assumption that everyone else in the room was also just a participant in the study.

There were two white display boards, one that had one black line, and one that had three black lines of different lengths. On the board with three lines each line was labeled A, B, and C. Every person in the room was asked in turn to voice a judgement on which of the three lines was the same length as the line on the other board.

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The experimenter began by asking the confederates which lines matched, and possibly for a round or two they would give the correct answer. But then on a third set of lines, they each gave the same incorrect answer. For example if the matching line was B, all the confederates answered A.
Because the true participant was towards the end of the line, they had heard several people report the wrong answer. So when it came time for their answer, some participants gave the same response as the confederates.

Seems crazy, right? They know everyone else is wrong. They're all looking at the same information. Why would they choose to give an answer that they know to be incorrect? In the video below, the phenomenon is explained in a bit more detail, with a preface by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who has one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time (but we'll get to that in a few weeks).


Still seems pretty amazing, doesn't it? What do you think you would do? 
Questions, comments, suggestions? Let me know below!
- Carly