Asch conformity experiments
The
Asch conformity experiments, published in
1951, were a series of studies that starkly demonstrated the power of
conformity in groups.
 |
The cards used in the experiment. The card on the left has the reference line and the one on the right shows the three comparison lines. |
Experimenters led by
Solomon Asch asked students to participate in a "vision test." In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining student would react to the confederates' behavior.
The participants — the real subject and the confederates — were all seated in a classroom where they were told to announce their judgment of the length of several lines drawn on a series of displays. They were asked which line was longer than the other, which were the same length, etc. The confederates had been prearranged to all give an incorrect answer to the tests.
While most subjects answered correctly, many showed extreme discomfort, and a high proportion (33%) conformed to the erroneous majority view of the others in the room when there were at least three confederates present, even when the majority said that two lines different in length by several inches were the same length. When the confederates were not unanimous in their judgment, subjects were much more likely to defect than when the confederates all agreed. Control subjects with no exposure to a majority view had no trouble giving the correct answer.
One difference between the Asch conformity experiments and the (also famous in
social psychology)
Milgram experiment noted by
Stanley Milgram is that subjects in these studies
attributed themselves and their own "poor eyesight" and misjudgment, while those in the Milgram experiment blamed the experimenter in explaining their behavior. Conformity may be much less
salient than
authority pressure.
The Asch experiments may provide some vivid
empirical evidence relevant to some of the ideas raised in
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four (
see two plus two make five). This also helps illustrate the concept of "point at a deer and call it a horse" (指鹿為馬/指鹿为马) that was made infamous by
Zhao Gao.
*
No soap radio, a joke or prank that preys upon a subject's likeliness to conform to other people's reactions to a stimulus. The basic setup is very similar to an Asch conformity experiment.
* Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgement. In H. Guetzkow (ed.)
Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press (
summary here)
* Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure.
Scientific American, pp. 31-35.
* Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority.
Psychological Monographs, 70 (Whole no. 416)
* Bond, R., & Smith, P. (1996). Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch's (1952b, 1956) line judgment task.
Psychological Bulletin, 119, 111-137.
PDF*
Changingminds: Normative social influence*
Age of the sage summary of one Asch experiment*
BBC Radio: Mind changers: Solomon Asch
