Asch Conformity Experiments

Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. The Asch conformity experiments were a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. These are also known as the "Asch Paradigm".


In the basic Asch paradigm, the participants — the real subject and the confederates — were a
ll seated in a classroom. They were asked a variety of questions about the lines (which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc.) The group was told to announce their answers to each question out loud and the confederates always provided their answers before the study participant. The confederates always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.

In a control group, with no pressure to conform to an erroneous view, only 1 subject out of 35 ever gave an incorrect answer. Solomon Asch hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (36.8%). 75% of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/asch-conformity.jpg