Researchers have long been curious about the degree to which people follow or rebel against social norms. Solomon Asch (1951) devised a series of experiments to analyze how group pressure could lead people to conform, even when they knew the rest of the group was wrong. They are still recognized as one of the most influential psychological experiments for understanding human behavior.
Conformity refers to an individual's tendency to comply with the behaviors or unwritten rules of a social group they belong to. It implies a change in behavior or beliefs based on the norms of a group, as a result of the group’s power. There are two types of influence:
Informative social influence
The individual relies on groups to obtain information about a question (related to what they are supposed to believe or how they should behave). It is more likely that the opinions of many people are accepted than the opinions of a single person. According to Myers (2009), informational influence means that individuals conform because they accept the evidence about the reality that has been provided by others.
Normative social influence
The individual believes that if they don’t behave like the rest of the team members, they will be rejected from the group. They feel pressured to conform to the group’s norms. According to Myers (2009), normative Influence is conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others' expectations and gain acceptance.
In his experiments, Asch observed that conformity tends to increase the more people there are present. However, there is little change once the group size goes beyond five people. The more difficult a task is, the higher the conformity. When in doubt, people resort to others to find out how to respond or act. In the same way, conformity increases when the members of the group belong to a higher social status. On the contrary, conformity decreases when the individuals are able to respond in private and when they get the support of at least one other person in the group.
The Asch Conformity Experiments
The Asch Conformity Experiments were a series of studies conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s. They analyzed the degree to which a person's opinions and behaviors were influenced by those of a group. Asch observed that individuals are willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer for the sake of conforming to the opinions of a group.
His experiment gathered a group of people (a real subject and several confederates/stooges) for what seemed to be a simple vision test. Using a line judgment task, Asch would show a line segment and ask to choose the matching line from a group of three segments of different lengths. Out of the three options, one of the lines had clearly the same length as the standard; the other two were either much longer or much shorter.
The confederates had been asked to give wrong unanimous answers from time to time. In some of the judgments, the real subject would then hear wrong answers from all the other members of the group that clearly contradicted his or her own perception.
Asch and his team observed that the participants (the real subjects) conformed to the rest of the team and gave wrong answers at least one out of three times. They also observed that conformity was higher the more people were in the group providing a unanimous answer, up until approximately five people (with more than five there would be hardly any change). However, one single person giving the right answer was enough to dramatically decrease conformity.
The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. It reflects the urge that many of us have to conform to a standard in social situations. It shows how we often care more about "fitting in" or being the same as others than we do about being right.
Factors contributing to conformity
A person is more likely to conform…
When judgments are difficult or ambiguous. (Difficulty)
The more members there are in the group. (Group size)
When there is a unanimous consensus. (Group unanimity)
In the first stages, when the individual is “negotiating” their position within the group. (Time-related factors)
If they are insecure, their status is lower, and they feel very attracted to the group. (Personal factors)
Who was Solomon Asch?
Solomon Asch (1907, Poland – 1996, United States) was a Gestalt psychologist and groundbreaker in social psychology. He began his teaching career at Brooklyn College, New York, and then moved to Pennsylvania, where he worked as a psychology professor at Swarthmore College (Gestalt's epicenter at the time) for 19 years. In 1966, he founded the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University.
"Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated. No error in thinking about social facts is more serious than the failure to see their place and function" (Asch, 1952, p. 61). As a Gestalt psychologist, his studies followed the idea that the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but the nature of the whole fundamentally alters the parts. Social acts, he believed, had to be studied in context.
He is best known for his conformity experiments, called the Asch Paradigm or Asch Conformity Experiments. Asch also supervised Stanley Milgram's Ph.D. at Harvard University and inspired Milgram's research on obedience.
Quotes by Solomon Asch
“Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of of his experience and insight.” ― Solomon E. Asch
Knowledge Check
1. Who is more likely to conform in public, but not in private?
a. An individual under informative social influence.
b. An individual under normative social influence.
c. An individual with a democratic leader.
d. An individual with a laissez-faire leader.
2. An individual who reacts to ___ pressure is more likely to conform in public and also accept it in private (there is a desire to ‘do the right thing’).
a. Informative
b. Normative
c. Coercive
d. Legitimate
3. Who studied conformity?
a. Salomon Asch
b. Stanley Milgram
c. Erving Goffman
d. Serge Moscovic
4. Choose the incorrect statement. “A person is more likely to conform…
a. ...when judgments are difficult or ambiguous."
b. ...if they are insecure."
c. ...in smaller groups."
d. ...if they don’t know the team members well."
Answer Key
1-b / 2-a / 3-a / 4-c.
Solomon Asch's relevant publications
Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership, and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.
Asch, S. E. (1952). Social psychology. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193, 31-35.
Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70 (Whole no. 416).
Asch, S. E. (1987). Social psychology. Oxford University Press.
Asch, SE (1987). Social Psychology. Oxford University Press.