an experimental paradigm commonly used to study conformity to group opinion. Participants are led to believe that they are making perceptual judgments about the length of a line in a group - but in reality, the other members are confederates who make errors deliberately on certain trials to assess how the individual will react. This paradigm measures the extent to which participants either publicly conform to the erroneous group judgment or resist the pressure to do so and remain independent. |Solomon Asch]