asch experiment elevator

Elevator Groupthink: An Ingenious 1962 Psychology Experiment in Conformity

By maria popova.

The psychology of conformity is something we’ve previously explored, but its study dates back to the 1950s, when Gestalt scholar and social psychology pioneer Solomon Asch , known today as the Asch conformity experiments . Among them is this famous elevator experiment, originally conducted as a part of a 1962 Candid Camera episode titled “Face the Rear.”

Ultimately, diversity contributes not just by adding different perspectives to the group but also by making it easier for individuals to say what they really think. […] Independence of opinion is both a crucial ingredient in collectively wise decisions and one of the hardest things to keep intact. Because diversity helps preserve that independence, it’s hard to have a collectively wise group without it.”

Perhaps the role of the global Occupy movement and other expressions of contemporary civic activism is that of a cultural confederate, spurring others — citizens, politicians, CEOs — to face the front of the elevator at last.

Complement with How To Be a Nonconformist , a satirical masterpiece from the same era, written and illustrated by a teenage girl.

HT Not Exactly Rocket Science

— Published January 13, 2012 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/13/asch-elevator-experiment/ —

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The Psychology of Conformity

The psychology of conformity is something we've previously explored, but its study dates back to the 1950s, with Gestalt scholar and social psychology pioneer Solomon Asch , known today as the Asch conformity experiments . Among them is this famous elevator experiment, originally conducted as a part of a 1962 Candid Camera episode entitled "Face the Rear."

But, while amusing in its tragicomic divulgence of our capacity for groupthink, this experiment tells only half the story of Asch's work. As James Surowiecki reminds us in the excellent The Wisdom of Crowds , Asch went on to reveal something equally important -- that while people slip into conformity with striking ease, it also doesn't take much to get them to snap out of it. Asch demonstrated this in a series of experiments, planting a confederate to defy the crowd by engaging in the sensible, rather than nonsensical, behavior. That, it turned out, was just enough. Having just one peer contravene the group made subjects eager to express their true thoughts. Surowiecki concludes:

Ultimately, diversity contributes not just by adding different perspectives to the group but also by making it easier for individuals to say what they really think. ...Independence of opinion is both a crucial ingredient in collectively wise decisions and one of the hardest things to keep intact. Because diversity helps preserve that independence, it's hard to have a collectively wise group without it.

Perhaps the role of the global Occupy movement and other expressions of contemporary civic activism is that of a cultural confederate, spurring others -- citizens, politicians, CEOs -- to face the front of the elevator at last.

HT Not Exactly Rocket Science .

This post also appears on Brain Pickings , an  Atlantic  partner site.

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Bethany’s elevator experiment a case of backward research

Social conformity is everywhere. The clothes we wear. The rules we follow. The social roles we play. “Conformity is all around us,” said Jennifer Wosmek, a psychology instructor at Bethany Lutheran College. “But it’s hard to get at systematically.”

But Wosmek’s students found a way — and they used an elevator.

The idea to research social conformity in elevators came from a Candid Camera stunt in which a group of individuals are facing the back of an elevator when a new rider enters. Some follow suit, even though the notion of facing the back of a moving elevator is completely at odds with normal circumstances.

The video is sometimes cited in psychology textbooks and has become staple viewing in social psychology courses (yes, there’s a clip on YouTube). Bethany students, however, were unable to find even one research study that attempted to replicate the results.

So, the six students in Wosmek’s testing and measurements course crafted their own study and spent weeks gathering data at a large mall in the Twin Cities. (Wosmek said she does not have permission to use the mall’s name.) “This project gave us a chance to see what conformity really looks like,” senior Hayley Whitcomb said.

In one case, a man and woman immediately conformed when the elevator doors opened. They remained backward for the duration of the one-floor ride — and then backed out of the elevator when it stopped. In other cases, confused riders would turn backward and then ask if, perhaps, a second door existed that was going to open somewhere else.

Some riders turned only partially backward in an apparent effort to satisfy both their everyday sensibilities and their urge to conform.

“During our baseline testing, no one stood backward,” senior Courtney Nelson said. “But when we implemented (the experiment), it was interesting to see that people would actually do this.”

As they found, however, some are more likely to conform than others.

Age, for instance, predicts conformity.

The youngest conform most often (more than 40 percent of the time) while the oldest are least likely to conform (between 14 and 24 percent depending on if they are a middle-aged adult or lateaged adult, respectively).

Men are more likely to conform fully while women demonstrated higher levels of partial conformity. Study participants were also more likely to conform if there were a larger number of people facing backward.

“This project was really hands- on,” senior Shamaryah Miller said. “We were able to take what we learned in a book and really apply it.”

And that, students said, was the real lesson learned.

Conducting thought experiments on conformity is one thing, but devising an experiment that is procedurally sound is another. To that end, Wosmek’s students spent several weeks developing procedures and protocols to ensure their study was airtight.

They recruited dozens of campus volunteers to serve as “prompts” — the people who would stand backward in the elevator. Those volunteers were told to dress in different clothing styles, to avoid laughing or showing expression during the trials and to exit the elevator in separate directions so that onlookers wouldn’t get suspicious.

Each student was given different variables for their trials and made sure to record data secretly. Even before taking their experiment into the field, they ran several practice sessions in elevators downtown and at Minnesota State University.

The result, Wosmek said, was a “solid piece of research.” She said she’s even hoping to replicate the experiment next year with a university in China.

“This kind of experience turns students on to research,” Wosmek said. “It gets them involved in that role and seeing themselves as psychologists.”

December 20, 2011

This article originally appeared in the December 12 edition of the Free Press , Mankato. It was authored by Tanner Kent, Free Press staff writer.

Learn more about studying psychology at Bethany.

Solomon Asch Conformity Line Experiment Study

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Solomon Asch experimented with investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform .

He believed the main problem with Sherif’s (1935) conformity experiment was that there was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment.  How could we be sure that a person conformed when there was no correct answer?

Asch (1951) devised what is now regarded as a classic experiment in social psychology, whereby there was an obvious answer to a line judgment task.

If the participant gave an incorrect answer, it would be clear that this was due to group pressure.

Experimental Procedure

Asch used a lab experiment to study conformity, whereby 50 male students from Swarthmore College in the USA participated in a ‘vision test.’

Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges. The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task.

The real participant did not know this and was led to believe that the other seven confederates/stooges were also real participants like themselves.

Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A, B or C) was most like the target line. The answer was always obvious.  The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave his or her answer last.

At the start, all participants (including the confederates) gave the correct answers. However, after a few rounds, the confederates started to provide unanimously incorrect answers.

There were 18 trials in total, and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trials (called the critical trials).  Asch was interested to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view.

Asch’s experiment also had a control condition where there were no confederates, only a “real participant.”

Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials.

Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed.

In the control group , with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Why did the participants conform so readily?  When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought “peculiar.

A few of them said that they did believe the group’s answers were correct.

Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group ( normative influence ) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are ( informational influence ).

Critical Evaluation

One limitation of the study is that is used a biased sample. All the participants were male students who all belonged to the same age group. This means that the study lacks population validity and that the results cannot be generalized to females or older groups of people.

Another problem is that the experiment used an artificial task to measure conformity – judging line lengths. How often are we faced with making a judgment like the one Asch used, where the answer is plain to see?

This means that the study has low ecological validity and the results cannot be generalized to other real-life situations of conformity. Asch replied that he wanted to investigate a situation where the participants could be in no doubt what the correct answer was. In so doing he could explore the true limits of social influence.

Some critics thought the high levels of conformity found by Asch were a reflection of American, 1950’s culture and told us more about the historical and cultural climate of the USA in the 1950s than then they did about the phenomena of conformity.

In the 1950s America was very conservative, involved in an anti-communist witch-hunt (which became known as McCarthyism) against anyone who was thought to hold sympathetic left-wing views.

Perrin and Spencer

Conformity to American values was expected. Support for this comes from studies in the 1970s and 1980s that show lower conformity rates (e.g., Perrin & Spencer, 1980).

Perrin and Spencer (1980) suggested that the Asch effect was a “child of its time.” They carried out an exact replication of the original Asch experiment using engineering, mathematics, and chemistry students as subjects. They found that in only one out of 396 trials did an observer join the erroneous majority.

Perrin and Spencer argue that a cultural change has taken place in the value placed on conformity and obedience and in the position of students.

In America in the 1950s, students were unobtrusive members of society, whereas now, they occupy a free questioning role.

However, one problem in comparing this study with Asch is that very different types of participants are used. Perrin and Spencer used science and engineering students who might be expected to be more independent by training when it came to making perceptual judgments.

Finally, there are ethical issues : participants were not protected from psychological stress which may occur if they disagreed with the majority.

Evidence that participants in Asch-type situations are highly emotional was obtained by Back et al. (1963) who found that participants in the Asch situation had greatly increased levels of autonomic arousal.

This finding also suggests that they were in a conflict situation, finding it hard to decide whether to report what they saw or to conform to the opinion of others.

Asch also deceived the student volunteers claiming they were taking part in a “vision” test; the real purpose was to see how the “naive” participant would react to the behavior of the confederates. However, deception was necessary to produce valid results.

The clip below is not from the original experiment in 1951, but an acted version for television from the 1970s.

Factors Affecting Conformity

In further trials, Asch (1952, 1956) changed the procedure (i.e., independent variables) to investigate which situational factors influenced the level of conformity (dependent variable).

His results and conclusions are given below:

Asch (1956) found that group size influenced whether subjects conformed. The bigger the majority group (no of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.

With one other person (i.e., confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13%, and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3).

Optimum conformity effects (32%) were found with a majority of 3. Increasing the size of the majority beyond three did not increase the levels of conformity found. Brown and Byrne (1997) suggest that people might suspect collusion if the majority rises beyond three or four.

According to Hogg & Vaughan (1995), the most robust finding is that conformity reaches its full extent with 3-5 person majority, with additional members having little effect.

Lack of Group Unanimity / Presence of an Ally

The study also found that when any one individual differed from the majority, the power of conformity significantly decreased.

This showed that even a small dissent can reduce the power of a larger group, providing an important insight into how individuals can resist social pressure.

As conformity drops off with five members or more, it may be that it’s the unanimity of the group (the confederates all agree with each other) which is more important than the size of the group.

In another variation of the original experiment, Asch broke up the unanimity (total agreement) of the group by introducing a dissenting confederate.

Asch (1956) found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity by as much as 80%.

For example, in the original experiment, 32% of participants conformed on the critical trials, whereas when one confederate gave the correct answer on all the critical trials conformity dropped to 5%.

This was supported in a study by Allen and Levine (1968). In their version of the experiment, they introduced a dissenting (disagreeing) confederate wearing thick-rimmed glasses – thus suggesting he was slightly visually impaired.

Even with this seemingly incompetent dissenter, conformity dropped from 97% to 64%. Clearly, the presence of an ally decreases conformity.

The absence of group unanimity lowers overall conformity as participants feel less need for social approval of the group (re: normative conformity).

Difficulty of Task

When the (comparison) lines (e.g., A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased.

When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task, the greater the conformity.

Answer in Private

When participants were allowed to answer in private (so the rest of the group does not know their response), conformity decreased.

This is because there are fewer group pressures and normative influence is not as powerful, as there is no fear of rejection from the group.

Frequently Asked Questions

How has the asch conformity line experiment influenced our understanding of conformity.

The Asch conformity line experiment has shown that people are susceptible to conforming to group norms even when those norms are clearly incorrect. This experiment has significantly impacted our understanding of social influence and conformity, highlighting the powerful influence of group pressure on individual behavior.

It has helped researchers to understand the importance of social norms and group dynamics in shaping our beliefs and behaviors and has had a significant impact on the study of social psychology.

What are some real-world examples of conformity?

Examples of conformity in everyday life include following fashion trends, conforming to workplace norms, and adopting the beliefs and values of a particular social group. Other examples include conforming to peer pressure, following cultural traditions and customs, and conforming to societal expectations regarding gender roles and behavior.

Conformity can have both positive and negative effects on individuals and society, depending on the behavior’s context and consequences.

What are some of the negative effects of conformity?

Conformity can have negative effects on individuals and society. It can limit creativity and independent thinking, promote harmful social norms and practices, and prevent personal growth and self-expression.

Conforming to a group can also lead to “groupthink,” where the group prioritizes conformity over critical thinking and decision-making, which can result in poor choices.

Moreover, conformity can spread false information and harmful behavior within a group, as individuals may be afraid to challenge the group’s beliefs or actions.

How does conformity differ from obedience?

Conformity involves adjusting one’s behavior or beliefs to align with the norms of a group, even if those beliefs or behaviors are not consistent with one’s personal views. Obedience , on the other hand, involves following the orders or commands of an authority figure, often without question or critical thinking.

While conformity and obedience involve social influence, obedience is usually a response to an explicit request or demand from an authority figure, whereas conformity is a response to implicit social pressure from a group.

What is the Asch effect?

The Asch Effect is a term coined from the Asch Conformity Experiments conducted by Solomon Asch. It refers to the influence of a group majority on an individual’s judgment or behavior, such that the individual may conform to perceived group norms even when those norms are obviously incorrect or counter to the individual’s initial judgment.

This effect underscores the power of social pressure and the strong human tendency towards conformity in group settings.

What is Solomon Asch’s contribution to psychology?

Solomon Asch significantly contributed to psychology through his studies on social pressure and conformity.

His famous conformity experiments in the 1950s demonstrated how individuals often conform to the majority view, even when clearly incorrect.

His work has been fundamental to understanding social influence and group dynamics’ power in shaping individual behaviors and perceptions.

Allen, V. L., & Levine, J. M. (1968). Social support, dissent and conformity. Sociometry , 138-149.

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). Group forces in the modification and distortion of judgments.

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 70(9) , 1-70.

Back, K. W., Bogdonoff, M. D., Shaw, D. M., & Klein, R. F. (1963). An interpretation of experimental conformity through physiological measures. Behavioral Science, 8(1) , 34.

Bond, R., & Smith, P. B. (1996). Culture and conformity : A meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgment task.  Psychological bulletin ,  119 (1), 111.

Longman, W., Vaughan, G., & Hogg, M. (1995). Introduction to social psychology .

Perrin, S., & Spencer, C. (1980). The Asch effect: a child of its time? Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 32, 405-406.

Sherif, M., & Sherif, C. W. (1953). Groups in harmony and tension . New York: Harper & Row.

Watch These Awkward Elevator Rides From an Old Episode of Candid Camera

The american prank television show put a psychology conformity theory to the test..

Elevator rides can be awkward. The tiny space forces passengers into close quarters as they slowly scale up and down buildings. In this clip from a ’60s episode of the American hidden camera show Candid Camera , the first unsuspecting rider, a middle-aged man in a trench coat, gets an even more unusual elevator experience. As other passengers follow behind him the man finds all of them oddly facing the back wall.

“You’ll see how this man in the trench coat tries to maintain his individuality,” says the host of the show, Allen Funt. The man in the trench coat rubs his face and nose in confusion at the other passengers. “He looks at his watch, but he’s really making an excuse for turning just a little bit more toward the wall.”  

In the 1960s, social conformity experiments got all the laughs. The 1962 Candid Camera episode “ Face the Rear ” tested the Asch conformity experiments. Polish psychologist Solomon Asch developed the series of studies in the 1950s, investigating how individuals succumbed to or defied a majority group, and the effects of such behavior. And what better environment to conduct these psychology experiments than in an elevator recorded by the Candid Camera crew.

Today, psychologists and researchers still turn to and Asch’s experiments, the famous Candid Camera clip popularly shown in psychology classes. “Conformity is all around us,” Jennifer Wosmek, a psychology professor at Bethany Lutheran College, told Free Press. “But it’s hard to get at systematically.”

Wosmek and colleagues at Bethany Lutheran College replicated the elevator experiment in 2011, and found similar awkward situations seen in the 1962 clip. People turned around to match the other passengers without question, while others confusedly asked if there was a second door that opened. They also found that men conformed more fully, while women often only did so partially. Younger people also conformed much more often than older.

Perhaps the Candid Camera victim who gets the most laughs is the young man who enters the elevator at the 1:20-mark. The Candid Camera crew in the elevator turn multiple directions in the elevator—each time the doors open, the young man has also turned to face the same way. He even follows along without question when the men take of their hats and put them back on.

While the experiment on the prank television show was for laughs, it also reveals how powerful conformity can be.

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Asch Conformity Experiments: Line Study

Categories Social Psychology

Will people conform to the group’s opinions, even if they disagree? That was the question behind one of the most famous experiments in psychology history. The Asch conformity experiments were a series of studies by social psychologist Solomon Asch during the 1950s. In the studies, Asch sought to learn more about how social pressure could lead to conformity .

In the studies, people were asked to choose a line that matched the length of another line. When the others in the group chose the incorrect line, participants would often conform to the rest of the group, even though they were clearly wrong.

The experiments are classic studies in social psychology, offering important insights into when and why people conform to group norms and pressures.

Table of Contents

The Asch Experiments

In the main version of the experiment, Asch told the participants that they were taking part in a vision test. Each participant was then placed in a group of people who were actually confederates in the study. In other words, they were actors who were involved in the experiment.

The group was shown a line on a card and then another card with several lines of varying lengths. They were asked to pick the line that matched the first line.

It was a simple task. When asked on their own, almost all participants were able to easily perform the task correctly. When they were in the group, and the confederates gave the wrong answers, the participants were often go along with the group.

Results of the Asch Conformity Experiments

The results of the Asch conformity experiments were startling. They revealed that a staggering 75% of the participants conformed to the group at least once. Even more surprising, about 25% never conformed, while 5% conformed every single time.

For the control group, where people faced no social pressure, incorrect responses were given less than 1% of the time.

Explanations for the Results

What explains the high rates of conformity in Asch’s experiments? There are several important psychological factors at work. The reasons people went along with the group even when they knew the others were wrong come down to several reasons:

Normative Social Influence

People have a desire for social acceptance. They want to fit in with the group and prefer not to stand out. By agreeing with the rest of the group, they increase the likelihood of being liked and accepted by others.

The fear of embarrassment can also play a role. Being the only one to voice a different answer comes with the risk of appearing foolish or being ridiculed. Even if people knew they were right, fear of social disapproval caused them to conform.

Informational Social Influence

When making decisions under uncertainty, people often look to other people as a source of information. If other people say one thing is correct, people often assume that others know something they don’t, which is why they conform.

Self-doubt in these situations can also play a role. Once others started choosing the wrong answer, the participants may have started to question their response and wondered if they had overlooked something.

Other Factors That Can Influence Conformity

There are also a number of other factors that can affect the likelihood that people with conform like they did Asch conformity experiments.

These include:

• Group size : Conformity usually increases with group size, at least up to a certain point. When 3 to 5 people are present, there is a lot of pressure to conform. When the number of people exceeds that, conformity typically starts to decline.
• Status : People are more likely to conform if the others in the group are seen as having a higher status, more authority, or greater expertise.
• Privacy of responses : People are more inclined to conform if their responses are public. When responses are private, conformity rates drop.
• Uncertainty and difficulty : If the task is ambiguous or difficult, people are less likely to trust their own judgment. They will often look to others for information and assurance, which increases conformity.
• Group unity : Conformity is higher in very cohesive groups. The stronger the bonds between group members, the more likely people are to conform.

In a 2023 replication of Asch’s conformity experiment, researchers found an error rate of 33%, similar to the one in Asch’s original study. They found that offering monetary incentives helped reduce errors but didn’t eliminate the effects of social influence. The study also found that social influence impacted political opinions, leading to a conformity rate of 38% (Franzen & Mader, 2023).

The study also examined how Big Five personality factors might be linked to conformity. While openness was associated with susceptibility to group pressure, other personality traits were not significantly connected.

One 2018 experiment found that the social delivery of information caused 33% of participants to change their political opinions (Mallinson & Hatemi, 2018).

Critiques of the Asch Conformity Experiments

While influential, the Asch experiments were not without criticism. Some of the main criticisms hinge on the following:

• The impact of demand characteristics : Some critics suggest that some participants may have suspected the study’s real intentions and behaved to meet the experimenter’s expectations.
• Lack of relevance in the real world : Critics also suggest that the experimental setup needed to be more contrived and accurately reflect real-world situations where conformity might occur.
• Cultural factors : The time and place of the experiments (the United States and during the 1950s) may also have contributed to the high conformity rates. During that time, conformity to American norms and values was highly valued. Such characteristics may not be universal to other places and periods.
• Simplified approach: While Asch’s experiments demonstrate one aspect of conformity (normative social influence), they don’t address the many other factors that can contribute to this behavior in real-world settings.

Impact and Contributions of the Asch Conformity Experiments

Asch’s conformity experiments had a major impact on the field of psychology. They helped inspire further research on conformity, compliance, and obedience.

The studies demonstrated that conformity is not just about fear of punishment ; it often comes from a deep psychological need for acceptance and group harmony.

These findings have influenced a wide range of fields, from understanding peer pressure and decision-making in groups to exploring the dynamics of social behavior in various cultural and political contexts. Asch’s experiments remain a cornerstone in social psychology , shaping how we think about the relationships between individual judgment and group influence.

Related reading:

• Classic Psychological Experiments
• The Robbers Cave Experiment
• Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
• What Is the Ingroup Bias?

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority . Psychological Monographs: General and Applied , 70(9), 1–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093718

Franzen, A., & Mader, S. (2023). The power of social influence: A replication and extension of the Asch experiment . PloS one , 18 (11), e0294325. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294325

Levine J. M. (1999). Solomon Asch’s legacy for group research . Personality and Social Psychology Review : An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc , 3 (4), 358–364. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0304_5

Mallinson, D. J., & Hatemi, P. K. (2018). The effects of information and social conformity on opinion change . PloS One , 13 (5), e0196600. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196600

The Asch Conformity Experiments

What Solomon Asch Demonstrated About Social Pressure

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The Asch Conformity Experiments, conducted by psychologist Solomon Asch in the 1950s, demonstrated the power of conformity in groups and showed that even simple objective facts cannot withstand the distorting pressure of group influence.

The Experiment

In the experiments, groups of male university students were asked to participate in a perception test. In reality, all but one of the participants were "confederates" (collaborators with the experimenter who only pretended to be participants). The study was about how the remaining student would react to the behavior of the other "participants."

The participants of the experiment (the subject as well as the confederates) were seated in a classroom and were presented with a card with a simple vertical black line drawn on it. Then, they were given a second card with three lines of varying length labeled "A," "B," and "C." One line on the second card was the same length as that on the first, and the other two lines were obviously longer and shorter.

Participants were asked to state out loud in front of each other which line, A, B, or C, matched the length of the line on the first card. In each experimental case, the confederates answered first, and the real participant was seated so that he would answer last. In some cases, the confederates answered correctly, while in others, the answered incorrectly.

Asch's goal was to see if the real participant would be pressured to answer incorrectly in the instances when the Confederates did so, or whether their belief in their own perception and correctness would outweigh the social pressure provided by the responses of the other group members.

Asch found that one-third of real participants gave the same wrong answers as the Confederates at least half the time. Forty percent gave some wrong answers, and only one-fourth gave correct answers in defiance of the pressure to conform to the wrong answers provided by the group.

In interviews he conducted following the trials, Asch found that those that answered incorrectly, in conformance with the group, believed that the answers given by the Confederates were correct, some thought that they were suffering a lapse in perception for originally thinking an answer that differed from the group, while others admitted that they knew that they had the correct answer, but conformed to the incorrect answer because they didn't want to break from the majority.

The Asch experiments have been repeated many times over the years with students and non-students, old and young, and in groups of different sizes and different settings. The results are consistently the same with one-third to one-half of the participants making a judgment contrary to fact, yet in conformity with the group, demonstrating the strong power of social influences.

Connection to Sociology

The results of Asch's experiment resonate with what we know to be true about the nature of social forces and norms in our lives. The behavior and expectations of others shape how we think and act on a daily basis because what we observe among others teaches us what is normal , and expected of us. The results of the study also raise interesting questions and concerns about how knowledge is constructed and disseminated, and how we can address social problems that stem from conformity, among others.

Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

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Conformity - Asch (1951)

Last updated 6 Sept 2022

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Asch (1951) conducted one of the most famous laboratory experiments examining conformity. He wanted to examine the extent to which social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to conform.

Asch’s sample consisted of 50 male students from Swarthmore College in America, who believed they were taking part in a vision test. Asch used a line judgement task, where he placed on real naïve participants in a room with seven confederates (actors), who had agreed their answers in advance. The real participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other seven people were also real participants. The real participant always sat second to last.

In turn, each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was most like the target line in length.

Unlike Jenness’ experiment , the correct answer was always obvious. Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials. Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect.

Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, the real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the participants never conformed. Asch also used a control group, in which one real participant completed the same experiment without any confederates. He found that less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer.

Asch interviewed his participants after the experiment to find out why they conformed. Most of the participants said that they knew their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed. This confirms that participants conformed due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in.

Evaluation of Asch

Asch used a biased sample of 50 male students from Swarthmore College in America. Therefore, we cannot generalise the results to other populations, for example female students, and we are unable to conclude if female students would have conformed in a similar way to male students. As a result Asch’s sample lacks population validity and further research is required to determine whether males and females conform differently

Furthermore, it could be argued that Asch’s experiment has low levels of ecological validity . Asch’s test of conformity, a line judgement task, is an artificial task, which does not reflect conformity in everyday life. Consequently, we are unable to generalise the results of Asch to other real life situations, such as why people may start smoking or drinking around friends, and therefore these results are limited in their application to everyday life.

Finally, Asch’s research is ethically questionable. He broke several ethical guidelines , including: deception and protection from harm . Asch deliberately deceived his participants, saying that they were taking part in a vision test and not an experiment on conformity. Although it is seen as unethical to deceive participants, Asch’s experiment required deception in order to achieve valid results. If the participants were aware of the true aim they would have displayed demand characteristics and acted differently. In addition, Asch’s participants were not protected from psychological harm and many of the participants reporting feeling stressed when they disagreed with the majority. However, Asch interviewed all of his participants following the experiment to overcome this issue.

• Normative Social Influence
• Task Difficulty

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Biography of Psychologist Solomon Asch

Asch conducted influential experiments on conformity

Birth and Death

• Asch's Conformity Experiments

Contributions to Psychology

Selected publications.

Solomon Asch was a pioneering 20th century social psychologist who is perhaps best remembered for his research on the psychology of conformity . Asch took a Gestalt approach to the study of social behavior, suggesting that social acts needed to be viewed in terms of their setting. His famous conformity experiment demonstrated that people would change their response due to social pressure in order to conform to the rest of the group.

"The human mind is an organ for the discovery of truths rather than of falsehoods." —Solomon Asch

• Solomon Eliot Asch was born September 14, 1907, in Warsaw, Poland.
• He died February 20, 1996, in Haverford, Pennsylvania at the age of 88.

Solomon Asch was born in Warsaw but emigrated to the United States in 1920 at the age of 13. His family lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and he learned English by reading the works of Charles Dickens.

Asch attended the College of the City of New York and graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1928. He then went to Columbia University, where he was mentored by Max Wertheimer and earned his master's degree in 1930 and his PhD in 1932.

Asch's Conformity Experiments

During the early years of World War II when Hitler was at the height of power, Solomon Asch began studying the impact of propaganda and indoctrination while he was a professor at Brooklyn College's psychology department. He also served as a professor for 19 years at Swarthmore College, where he worked with renowned Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler.

Asch is one of many psychology researchers who generated new ideas about human psychology in response to the events of World War II. Others include Victor Frankl, the father of logotherapy .

It was during the 1950s when Asch became famous for his series of experiments (known as the Asch conformity experiments ) that demonstrated the effects of social pressure on conformity. Just how far would people go to conform to others in a group? Asch's research demonstrated that participants were surprisingly likely to conform to a group, even when they personally believed that the group was incorrect. From 1966 to 1972, Asch held the title of director and distinguished professor of psychology at the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University.

Solomon Asch is considered a pioneer of social psychology and Gestalt psychology. His conformity experiments demonstrated the power of social influence and still serve as a source of inspiration for social psychology researchers today. Understanding why people conform and under what circumstances they will go against their own convictions to fit in with the crowd not only helps psychologists understand when conformity is likely to occur but also what can be done to prevent it.

Asch also supervised Stanley Milgram's Ph.D. at Harvard University and inspired Milgram's own highly influential research on obedience . Milgram's work helped demonstrate how far people would go to obey an order from an authority figure.

While Asch's work illustrated how peer pressure influences social behavior (often in negative ways), Asch still believed that people tended to behave decently towards each other. The power of situations and group pressure, however, could often lead to less than ideal behavior and decision-making.

In a 2002 review of some of the most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, Asch was ranked as the 41st most-frequently cited psychologist.

Below are some of Asch's most important published works. His most prominent publications are from the 1950s and the time of his experiments in conformity.

• 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. (1955). Opinions and social pressure . Scientific American , 193, 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).
• Asch, SE (1987). Social Psychology . Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198521723

Morgan TJ, Laland KN. The biological bases of conformity .  Front Neurosci . 2012;6:87. doi:10.3389/fnins.2012.00087

Asch SE. Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments . In: Guetzkow H, ed.,  Groups, leadership and men; research in human relations. Pittsburgh PA: Carnegie Press; 1951.

 Swarthmore College.  1951 Psychologist Solomon Asch's Famous Experiments .

University of Pennsylvania. Death of Solomon Asch . Almanac. 1996 ;42:23

McCauley C, Rozin P. Solomon Asch: Scientist and humanist . In: Kimble GA, Wertheimer M, eds.,  Portraits of pioneers in psychology, Vol. 5. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2003.

Milgram S. Behavioral study of obedience .  J Abnorm Soc Psychol. 1963;67 (4), 371–378. doi:10.1037/h0040525

Haggbloom SJ, Warnick R, Warnick JE, et al. The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century .  Review of General Psychology . 2002;6(2):139-152. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139

Rock, Irvin, ed. The Legacy of Solomon Asch: Essays in Cognition and Social Psychology . Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0805804404; 1990.

• Stout, D. Solomon Asch Is Dead at 88; A Leading Social Psychologist. The New York Times ; 1996.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Course blog for INFO 2040/CS 2850/Econ 2040/SOC 2090

Behavior Cascade and Conformity

In the late 1950’s a Psychologist by the name of Solomon Asch conducted several experiments to probe humans’ need to conform to the majority of those around them.  These experiments took the shape of placing unaware, or at least mislead subjects into groups of actors who would then try to adjust the subject’s normal behavior to match their own.  At the time, many of these results came as a surprise to the testers and Dr. Asch, as they were unprepared to witness how easy it could be to manipulate an average person’s behavior given a large majority of influence.  For instance, one such experiment attempted to make unassuming elevator riders face the back wall, instead of the door as most people do.  To do this, when the subject entered the elevator, all the actors would turn together to face the opposite wall.  While confused, most test subjects followed suit and turned as well.

A Test Subject (Center) Stands Among Actors

The Subject Turned Around With All Other Riders

Another such experiment, while less novel, may provide a bit more insight into human conformity when analyzed.  This experiment tested people’s willingness to vocally oppose a majority who were making obviously wrong statements.  Specifically, participants around a table were all trying to match the length of a given line to that of three other line choices (1, 2, or 3), but only one of them was an actual participant, while the others were actors.  This experiment showed that as more of the actors chose the obviously incorrect line, the subject also chose that line more often.  Asch ran many trials of this experiment with fairly convincing trends.  For instance, knowing that they were part of “some kind” of psychology experiment, when too many actors chose the wrong line, some participants would catch on and stick with their first choice instead of conforming.

In each of these experiments, the people participating can be made into a completely connected network (including the actors), where each node is a person.  The one node of interest in each network, then, is the actual test subject.  If each node can be identified as performing a normal or abnormal behavior, then one can observe the affect of every one else’s behavior on the behavior of the test subject.  Given that the elevator test had every actor in the elevator face the wall in each experiment, then it is difficult to conclude anything except that the test subjects exhibited a high conformity rate when 100% of their “neighbors” were performing the odd behavior.  However, since the line-length test varied the number of opposing behavior participants, its easier to draw a relationship.  In the link provided, one can see that it took about 3 opposing decisions to make the subject choose the wrong line, meaning that the threshold for behavior adoption of the test subject was about 50% of its neighbors.  While not every subject conformed at this threshold, it is a good estimate for an average person.

So beware when entering strange elevators, and don’t easily stray from what feels right, because someone could be testing you…

November 17, 2016 | category: Uncategorized

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Elevator Groupthink

The study of the psychology of conformity dates back to the 1950s, when Gestalt scholar and social psychology pioneer Solomon Asch , known today as the Asch conformity experiments . Among them is this famous elevator experiment, originally conducted as a part of a 1962 Candid Camera episode titled “Face the Rear.”

But, while amusing in its tragicomic divulgence of our capacity for groupthink, this experiment tells only half the story of Asch’s work. As James Surowiecki reminds us in the excellent The Wisdom of Crowds , Asch went on to reveal something equally important — that while people slip into conformity with striking ease, it also doesn’t take much to get them to snap out of it. Asch demonstrated this in a series of experiments, planting a confederate to defy the crowd by engaging in the sensible, rather than nonsensical, behavior. That, it turned out, was just enough. Having just one peer contravene the group made subjects eager to express their true thoughts. Surowiecki concludes:

Ultimately, diversity contributes not just by adding different perspectives to the group but also by making it easier for individuals to say what they really think. [...] Independence of opinion is both a crucial ingredient in collectively wise decisions and one of the hardest things to keep intact. Because diversity helps preserve that independence, it’s hard to have a collectively wise group without it.

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