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Dr. Philip Zimbardo: Okay I wanna give 
you a test of your visually acuity.

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Your sensitivity to 
differences in line lengths.

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So I'm going to show you a standard, 
and then I'll show three comparison lines.

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One is going to be bigger, 
one is going to be shorter,

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and one is going to be 
the same size as the standard.

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Your job is, tell me which line, 
A, B, or C, is the same as the standard.

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Seems like a simple judgement, 
you always get it right.

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But now, 
before you give your answer,

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there are going to be a half dozen 
to ten other people, like you, in the room,

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and they're going to give 
their answers first.

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An amazing thing happens, 
one after another,

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they say the line that you see as shorter,
is the same as the standard.

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Shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter 
they don't say shorter,

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they just say B, B, B, and so forth.

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Now it's your turn. 
You know B is the wrong answer.

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But what do you say? 
In this study done by Solomon Asch,

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classic study of group conformity.
The majority of people gave in.

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Gave in on most of the critical trials,
to agree with, to say publicly,

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that they agreed with the majority.

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This study is one of the 
first classic studies

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on the power of the group.

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As long as there are three or more people 
who agree among themselves

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that reality is not the 
way you see it,

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in many cases, 
you give in to see the world in their way.

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Let's look at that study.

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Experiment Conductor: 
The experiment you will be taking

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part in today involves the 
perception of lengths of lines.

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As you can see here,
I have a number of cards

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and on each there are several lines.

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Your task is a very simple one:

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you are to look at the line on the left 
and determine which of the three lines

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on the right is equal to it in length.

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Alright, we'll proceed in this order, 
you will give your answers-

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Narrator: Only one of the people 
in the group is a real subject,

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the fifth person 
with a white tee-shirt.

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The others are confederates 
of the experimenter,

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and have been told to give 
wrong answers on some of the trials.

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The experiment begins uneventfully 
as subjects give their judgements

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Male Subjects: 
Two, two, two, two, two.

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Three, three, three, three.

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But on the third trial, something happens.

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Two, two, two, uh two.

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The subject denies the evidence 
of his own eyes and yields to group influence.

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Asch found subjects went along with 
the group on 37% of the critical trials.

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But he found through interviews 
that they went along with

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the group for different reasons.

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Male Subjects: 
One, one.

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Male #1: They must be right, 
there are four of them and one of me.

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One.

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Narrator: This subject's yielding is based 
on a distortion of his judgement.

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He genuinely believes 
that the group is correct.

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Male Subjects:
One. One. One. Two.

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One. Two. Two. Two.

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Male #1: I know they're wrong,
but why should I make waves?

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Narrator: In this case, 
the subject knows he is right,

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but goes along to avoid the 
discomfort of disagreeing with the group.

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Here, the distortion 
is at the level of his response.

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Male Subjects:
Two, Two, Two, Two.

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Narrator: In the previous experiment, 
the naïve subject stood alone against the group.

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In this variation, 
Asch gave the naïve subject a partner,

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here seated in the third position, 
who also gives the correct response.

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Male Subjects:
One, one, two, one, um two.

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Narrator: With a partner, 
yielding drops to only five percent

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of the critical trials 
compared to 37% without a partner.

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Although subjects report 
warmth and good feeling

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toward the partner, 
they typically deny that he played

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a role in their own independence.

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The partnership variation shows 
that much of the power of the group came,

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not merely from its numbers 
but from the unanimity of its opposition.

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When that unanimity is punctured, 
the group's power is greatly reduced.

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Sometimes we go along 
with the group because

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what they say convinces 
us they are right.

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This is called 
informational conformity.

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But sometimes we conform 
because we are apprehensive

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that the group will 
disapprove if we are deviant.

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This is called normative conformity.

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The strength of the normative factor 
is shown in another variation carried out by Asch.

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In this variation, 
the subject is told that

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because he had arrived late, 
he would have to write his answers.

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Subjects in this private response 
experiment are exposed

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to the same amount of 
misleading information as other subjects,

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but they're immune from any 
possible criticism by the group.

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Male Subjects: 
One, one, one-

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Narrator: And this enormously reduces 
the pressure to conform.

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Conformity drops by 2/3.

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Asch's experiment is a classic.

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It reveals how people 
will deny what they see,

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and submit to group pressure.

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It allows us not 
only to observe conformity,

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but to study the conditions 
that increase or reduce its occurrence.