Asch conformity experiments

The Asch conformity experiments were a series of psychological tests conducted by Polish-American social psychologist Solomon Asch in the 1950s. The tests examined subjects' willingness to conform to obviously incorrect beliefs due to social pressure. Conformity is any intentional change in behavior made to be similar to other members of a social group.

In the experiments, Asch asked groups of people to identify which of three black lines on a paper was the same length as the line on another paper. In each group, only one person was an actual test subject, while the others were actors working for Asch. The actors provided distinctly wrong answers. Many, but not all, of the real test subjects simply agreed with these answers they knew to be wrong, as they were unwilling to be singled out for rebelling against apparent group wisdom.

In the end, more than one-third of Asch's test subjects conformed to the predominant, and incorrect, group answer. The result surprised Asch, who concluded that the human desire to be accepted into a group could convince even intelligent people to defy logic simply to "fit in."

Background

The issues of social pressure and conformity that Asch studied in his 1950s experiments are of great interest to modern psychology. Some psychologists assert that social pressure, also called peer pressure, can heavily influence people's behavior in social groups. Social groups consist of two or more people who regularly interact and are united by some common characteristic, such as by being classmates, coworkers, or members of a family. Social pressure refers to attempts by members of a social group to persuade a nonconforming member to conform.

The purpose of social pressure is usually to eliminate differences among members of a social group. Conformity creates social bonds, which help people connect to one another. People who do not conform may be perceived as different, odd, or rebellious and may consequently be left out of the group. Thus, those who succumb to social pressure typically do so to fit in with a group. They may know their behavior violates their personal morals or what they know to be correct, but the threat of being excluded from the group drives them to continue conforming.

When referring to children and adolescents, the term peer pressure is used more often than social pressure, though the phrases refer to the same practice. These two groups of people are especially vulnerable to peer pressure since young people are impressionable as they grow. Friends are important to many children and teens. Friends offer emotional support and new perspectives that might help a young person’s mental development.

However, a potential negative consequence of young people's reliance on friends is the peer pressure these friends might exert on members of their group who are not conforming to a harmful or illegal standard. Teenagers may fear losing their friends if they do not join them in lying, cheating, stealing, and using drugs or alcohol. Some young people believe having friends, even friends who pressure them into participating in harmful or dishonest activities, is more important than taking moral stances against irresponsible behavior. Young people who wish to avoid falling victim to peer pressure should learn to resist friends' persuasions or simply avoid such friends altogether.

Overview

Polish American psychologist Solomon Asch explored the influence of social pressure on human behavior in his conformity experiments of the 1950s. Asch was born in Warsaw in 1907 and moved to the United States in 1920. He earned a doctorate from New York City's Columbia University in 1932. Asch later joined the faculty of Swarthmore College in southeastern Pennsylvania, where he researched psychology for nearly twenty years.

In his experiments, Asch wanted to examine whether social pressure could force people to profess to holding demonstrably untrue beliefs. Asch believed investigating group pressure was an important task in the post–World War II era, since it was this pressure that had essentially allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to consolidate power in Germany before the war.

Asch's initial experiment featured eight men seated together in a room. Seven of these were "confederates," or actors secretly working with Asch. The eighth man was a real test subject who believed he was participating in a visual perception experiment. Research assistants held up eighteen pairs of cards for the men to see. The first card of each pair had a black vertical line on it. The second card had three vertical black lines of different lengths. The men had to determine which line on the second card was the same length as the line on the first card.

This part of the experiment was designed to be simplistic. In each case, it was readily apparent which of the three lines matched the length of the single line. However, for the majority of the eighteen pairs of cards, the seven confederates gave the same wrong answer. The real test subject, who always answered last or almost last, was then asked for his answer. The unanimously wrong preceding answers were intended to pressure the subject into knowingly providing the same wrong answer so he would not appear to be a dissenter in the group.

In the end, 36.8 percent of Asch's real test subjects answered incorrectly to conform to the rest of the group. Although the majority of test subjects (63.2 percent) defied the group and answered correctly, the results still unsettled Asch. He questioned why social pressure would make anyone at all knowingly ignore their own perceptions and provide a clearly wrong answer to a simple question.

Psychologists in later decades used the Asch conformity experiments as models for further study. Successive experiments detailed the conditions usually present when test subjects willingly conform to incorrect majority opinions. Conformity usually occurs when a potential dissenter is in a group of three or more people and when every other member of that group gives the same wrong answer to a question.

Conformity is also prevalent when the potential dissenter personally likes or admires the other group members and when the members will observe the dissenter when they provide their answer. All these factors work together to threaten the possible dissenter with feelings of insecurity, embarrassment, and discomfort if they provide a correct but differing answer. The conclusion is that one's desire to be accepted as a member of a social group can cause one to disregard common sense and agree with a majority opinion.

Asch’s findings have been confirmed by later research, including a 2023 study that aimed to replicate the original experiment and examine personality traits and financial incentives as intervening factors. These researchers found results similar to Asch’s 1950s studies and confirmed that monetary incentives lower error rates. However, personality traits had little to no utility in predicting an individual’s susceptibility to social influence.

Bibliography

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