The Psychology Book

224224

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Conformism

BEFORE

1880s Hippolyte Bernheim,

a French physician, uses

hypnosis to demonstrate the

concept of “suggestibility.”

1935 Muzafer Sherif’s

conformism experiment

leads Asch to develop the

Asch Paradigm.

AFTER

1963 Stanley Milgram’s

obedience experiments show

that people conform for an

authority figure despite

experiencing a moral conflict.

1976 Serge Moscovici argues

that a consistent minority can

be influential.

1979 Knud S. Larsen, a

Danish psychologist, shows

that conformity may be tied

to cultural climate.

S

ocial psychologist Solomon

Asch challenged our idea of

ourselves as autonomous

beings when he devised an

experiment to demonstrate our urge

to conform. His famous experiment

showed that when people are

confronted with a majority opinion,

the tendency to conform may be

stronger than their commitment to

what they perceive to be true. He

detailed his findings in his 1955

paper Opinions and Social Pressure,

which also discusses the social

influences that shape a person’s

beliefs, judgments, and practices.

Asch wanted to investigate the

effects of group pressure on

individual decision-making, and

HOW STRONG

IS THE URGE

TOWARD

SOCIAL

CONFORMITY?

SOLOMON ASCH (1907–1996)