Conformity
It is common that some people act the way they feel they’re supposed to, even though it might be opposite from what they really think. Usually, people tend to conform to groups, that is, to do the same thing that everyone else in the group does, regardless of whether they think it’s right. This effect is one of the questions that social psychology is dealing with.
One of the most important studies on conformity was conducted by Asch in 1952. His goal was to investigate levels of conformity when people were faced with a question that had an obvious answer.
As his apparatus, Asch used cards with various lines. Those consisted of one card having a line and the other card having three lines a, b, and c, the length of which the participants were supposed to match with the original line. In the initial setting, there were seven to eight confederates, and one naïve participant. They were all seated at the same table and were asked to say the answer out loud. The confederates were told to give the same wrong answer, in order to test whether the naïve participant will conform to the group. The answer was, as noted above, obvious. This is important to consider, because no optical illusion could have taken place, and the wrong answer that the participant could’ve given is only due to conformity.
