To provide a gripping device which quickly corrects the posture of a gripped workpiece and the gripped position in the direction of the width, and then delivers the workpiece to the next process, and further to provide its control method.

In the gripping device comprising a pair of gripping nails opposed to each other, a pair of correcting members which are arranged so as to be perpendicular to the gripping nails and so as to be opposed to each other, and a power transmitting member for transmitting the power of a driving system to the gripping nails and the correcting members. and in its control method, the posture correcting function is provided so as to correct the posture of the workpiece by bringing the correcting members into contact with the workpiece gripped by the gripping nails by advancing the correcting members. It is preferable that the gripping position correcting function is provided so as to correct the gripping position of the workpiece in the direction of the width by furthermore advancing the correcting members from the state where the posture of the workkpiece has been corrected.