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The Asch conformity experiments, published in 1951, were a series of studies that starkly demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...
This article is about Conformity in the context of psychology. ...
 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. Experiments 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. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Solomon E. Asch (September 14, 1907 - February 20, 1996) was a world-renowned American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. ...
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 (32%) 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 Milgram experiment as carried out by Stanley Milgram (also famous in social psychology) is that the subjects of these studies attributed their performance to their own misjudgment and "poor eyesight", while those in the Milgram experiment blamed the experimenter in explaining their behavior. Conformity may be much less salient than authority pressure. The experimenter (E) orders the subject (S) to give what the subject believes are painful electric shocks to another subject (A), who is actually an actor. ...
Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was a psychologist at Yale University, Harvard University and the City University of New York. ...
The scope of social psychological research. ...
Attribution theory is a field of social psychology, which was born out of the theoretical models of Fritz Heider, Harold Kelley, Edward E. Jones, and Lee Ross. ...
The salience (also called saliency) of an item is its state or quality of standing out relative to other items. ...
Authority- is a very talented rocknroll band out of Columbia, S.C. This power rock trio has its roots in rock, funk, hardcore, and a dash of hip hop. ...
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. Empirical is an adjective often used in conjunction with science, both the natural and social sciences, which means an observation or experiment based upon experience that is capable of being verified or disproved. ...
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903[1][2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author and journalist. ...
Nineteen Eighty-Four (commonly written as 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell, published in 1949. ...
The phrase two plus two make five (or 2 + 2 = 5) is sometimes used as a succinct and vivid representation of an illogical statement, especially one made and maintained to suit an ideological agenda. ...
Zhao Gao 趙高 (died end of October 207 BC) was the chief eunuch during the Qin Dynasty of China, who played an instrumental role in the downfall of the Qin Dynasty. ...
A number of critiques have been lobbed against Asch's experiment including a question of the motivation of students to be accurate. Rather than testing conformity, Asch's study may have simply measured a disinterested student's reluctance to engage in conflict to get the answer right. Moreover, in Asch's experiments the subjects were not allowed to interact with confederates. When the experiment was conducted in which even one confederate was allowed to give the correct answer, confirming responses dropped significantly. This is consistent with Milgram's later findings of the effect of "role models for defiance" in his classic Obedience Experiment.
Asch's experiment only tested behavioral acquiescence and not attitude change.
A 2005 study (described in [1]) using functional M.R.I. scanners showed that social conformity engages regions of the brain devoted to spatial awareness. In other words, experimental subjects who gave in to group pressure actually saw saw things that way. Conformity was due to a change in perception rather than conscious judgement.
See also
- 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.
thats right No soap radio (often No soap, radio, No Soap Radio, sometimes No soap. ...
References - 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
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