Asch's Line Study

Question 1

What was Asch investigating?

Answer 1

• Asch was investigating whether majority group pressure is strong enough to cause individuals to answer questions wrongly when the correct answer was obvious

Question 2

How did he do it?

Answer 2

• Participants had to say which of three lines was the same size as the test line.
• Participants were sixth in line to the answer in a group of seven - all other six ‘participants’ were accomplices of Asch, instructed to give the wrong answer

Question 3

What did he find?

Answer 3

• 32% of participants conformed to the wrong (majority) decision
• 74% of participants conformed at least once
• 26% of participants never conformed

Question 4

Evaluate Asch’s line study?

Answer 4

• the social climate : conformity was a stronger social norm in the 1950’s
• ethical issues : asch’s participants were deceived and made to feel anxious
• objective measure of conformity - unlike in Sherif’s autokinetic study, there was a right answer therefore conformity could be accurately measured
  culture : Smith and Bond (1996) suggest that variations might depend on whether the culture is individualist (us) or collectivist (china, japan)