Asch Conformity Experiment

Okay, I wanna give you
a test of your visual acuity.

Your sensitivity to
differences in line lengths.

So I'm gonna show you a standard

and then I'm gonna show
you three comparison lines.

One is gonna be bigger,
one is gonna be shorter,

and one is gonna be the
same size as the standard.

Your job is...

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

Seems like a simple judgement.

You always get it right.

But now, before you give your answer,

there are gonna be

half dozen to ten other
people, like you, in the room

and they're gonna
give their answers first.

An amazing thing happens.

One after another, they say
the line that you see as shorter

is the same as the standard.

Shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter,

they don't say shorter, they
just say B, B, B, B. and so forth.

Now it's your turn.

You know B is the wrong answer.

But what do you say?

In this study done by Solomon Asch,

a classic study of group conformity,

the majority of people gave in.

Gave in on most of the critical trials

to agree with, to say, publicly

that they agreed with the majority.

So this study is one of
the first classic studies

on the power of a group.

As long as there's three or more people

who agree among themselves

that reality is not the way you see it,

in many cases, you give in

to see the world in their way.

Let's look at that study.

(male speaker)
The experiment you'll be taking part in

today involves the
perception of lengths of lines

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

and on each card there are several lines.

Your task is a very simple one.

You're to look at the line on the left

and determine which of the three lines

on the right is equal to it in length.

Alright we'll procede in this order:

you'll give your answer...

(male narrator)
Only one of the peope in the group

is a real subject.

The fifth person with the white t-shirt.

The others are
confederates of the experimenter

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

The experiment begins uneventfully,
as subjects give their judgements.

Two.

Two.

Two.

Two.

Two.

(Subject 1)
Three.

(Subject 2)
Three.

(Subject 3)
Three.

Three.

Three.

(Narrator)
But on the third trial, something happens.

(Subject 1)
Two.

(Subject 2)
Two.

(Subject 3)
Two.

Two.

Uh, two.

(Narrator)
The subject denies the evidence

of his own eyes and
yields to group influence.

Asch found subjects
went along with the group

on 37% of the critical trials.

But he found, through interviews,

that they went along with
the group for different reasons.

One.

One.

(thinking)
They must be right.

There are four of them and one of me.

One.

(Narrator)
This subject's yeilding

is based on a distortion of his judgement.

He genuinely believes
that the group is correct.

One.

One.

One.

Two.

One.

(Subject 1)
Two.

Two.

Two.

(thinking)
I know they're wrong,

but why should I make waves?

Two.

(Narrator) In this case,

the subject knows he is right,

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

Here the distortion is at
the level of his response.

Two.

Two.

Two.

Two.

(Narrator)
In the previous experiment,

the naive subject stood
alone against the group.

In this variation, Asch
gave the naive subject

a partner, here seated
in the third position,

who also gives the correct response.

(Subject 1
One.

One.

Two.

One.

Um, two.

(Narrator)
With a partner,

yielding drops to only
5% of the critical trials,

compared to 37% without a partner.

Although subjects report
warmth and good feeling

toward the partner, they typically deny

that he played a role in
their own independence.

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

not nearly from it's numbers, but
from the uninimity of its opposition.

When that uninimity is punctured,

the group's power is greatly reduced.

Sometimes we go along with a group

because what they say
convinces us they are right.

This is called informational conformity.

And sometimes, we conform
because we are apprehensive

that the group will
disapprove if we are deviant.

This is called normative conformity.

The strength of the normative factor

is shown in another
variation carried out by Asch.

In this variation, the subject is told
that, because he had arrived late,

he would have to write his answers.

Subjects in this private
response experiment

are exposed to the same amount of

misleading information
as other subjects,

but they are immune from any
possible criticism by the group.

One.

One.

One.

(Narrator)
And this enormously reduces

the pressure to conform.

Conformity drops by two thirds.

Asch's experiment is a classic.

It reveals how people
will deny what they see

and submit to group pressure.

It allows us not only
to observe conformity,

but to study the conditions that
increase or reduce it's occurrence.

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