The Asch Conformity Experiments

Andres Yengle


Mr. Roddy


IHSS


September 29, 2019




The Asch Conformity Experiments 

Conformity is in "compliance with standards, rules, or laws". Several experiments have been done to test conformity within humans. These experiments were meant to test if humans would conform to certain ideas that were obviously wrong. Specifically, the Asch conformity experiments tested if subjects would say the same answers as participants in front of them would say even if they were objectively wrong. The Asch experiment would place a person in a room with other people that knew about the experiment but the subject had no idea. They would put two pieces of paper in front of the participants. One would have a single line and the other would have three lines with varying lengths. One line on the second sheet would be the same length as a line on the first sheet. The three lines would be labeled "A", "B", and "C". The instructors would tell the participants to identify the line that matched the line on the first sheet of paper. The subject would always be placed in a specific place so that he would answer last so that he would know what others answered. The results were that about 1/3 of the participants would answer wrongly along with the participants. When interviewed the subjects said that they started to doubt themselves when the participants answered and would conform to others answers. Conforming can be linked to many reasons most often low self-esteem and dependence on others. Also for me when people laugh when I say something wrong it makes me feel like I shouldn't answer questions even when I know the answer. In conclusion, I believe that we need to believe in ourselves a little more.    

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