Asch Study Research Paper

The Asch Study, done by Solomon Asch, was done to study conformity by using a test consisting of lines, and today there is a lot of information that can be used from this study when learning about conformity. There are a lot of people who will conform to anything no matter what it is just to fit in. Asch created this experiment to actually see how much people are pressured to conform no matter how obvious it is. Conformity is “the tendency for people to adopt the behavior and opinions presented by other group members” (Zimbardo, 571). Solomon Asch finally conducted the experiment in 1951 on a group of male participants. Asch created two cards, the first card had a line that the participants had to match up with another line on the second card, this card had three lines that the participants could choose from. Asch first gathered eight confederates, “actors posing as participants” (Pastorino, 512). All eight of these confederates where told to purposely say the obvious wrong answer. So asch took eight confederates and one participant and asked them which line on the second card was the same length as the line on the first card. The confederates went first so that the participant could hear their answer. After the confederates said their answer the participant was then supposed to give his answer. Seventy-four percent of the time the participant would conform to the confederates answer. Through this experiment Asch found immense information. Those who conformed first obviously showed disbelief, even with all the disbelief they still conformed. Almost three quarters of the people put under the group pressure conformed to the obvious false answer. In psychology this is the Asch Effect. The Asch Effect is “the influence of a group majority on the judgements of an individual” (Zimbardo, 571). Although the majority of the participants conformed to obvious wrong answer, there were some that stuck with their own beliefs. These people are called Heroes, “Heroes are