Branden Devoy

November 23, 2020

Psy150 paper3

Dr. Bianchi

Paper 3

After watching the meeting #6 video and learning more about Social Psychology, the

research study that stuck with myself the most, out of the three research studies in the video, was

the Asch Line Study. “It is important to consider both individual characteristics (like personality)

as well as the situation an individual is placed in when trying to predict human behavior.” This

scientific statement is nonrealistic because the Asch Line Study is a study that exploits how

easily a human can conform based on majority of a group’s decision. The experiment allows a

scientist to predict human behavior more accurately under controlled situations.

The Asch Line Study was conducted by Solomon Asch who wanted to find out if a

person would conform due to the pressure of a majority group idea/answer to a question. Ash set

up the experiment by inviting 50 male students from Swarthmore College to participate in a

vison test. Asch would place one of the participants in a group full of “fake participants” or

stooges. The real participant wasn’t aware of the stooges and was led to believe that everyone in

the group was a part of the lab study as well. Before the lab study took place, the stooges would

meet together and all agree to pick an answer incorrectly in order to see if they could make the

real participant conform to the wrong answer. Solomon Asch found that people would conform

to the group more easily than an individual would like to think.

 In the Asch Line Study it was proven that a majority of people, no matter how

independent or confident they are with themselves, tend to conform to a groups thoughts or

answers rather than going with their own knowledge. Human behavior tend to conform for two

reasons; people tend to want to fit in with the rest of the crowd or they have beliefs that the other

people within the group have more knowledge or are better informed than themselves. This

research study does debunk that idea that, “it is important to consider both individual

characteristics (like personality) as well as the situation an individual is placed in when trying to

predict human behavior” because personality had no factor on the outcome of the research study.