COMPLIANCE AND CONFORMITYa group’s ability to adjust and survive as is con-
formity. In fact, a nonconforming member can
influence the majority opinion even as the majori-
ty pressures the deviate to conform. As Irving Janis
(1972) points out in his analysis of ‘‘groupthink,’’
however, conformity pressures can grow so strong
that they silence alternative opinions and strangle
a group’s ability to critically analyze and respond
to the problems it faces. Thus, conformity is a
double-edged sword. It enables people to unify for
collective endeavors but it exacts a cost in poten-
tial innovation.
CLASSIC EXPERIMENTSThe social scientific investigation of conformity
began with the pioneering experiments of Muzafer
Sherif (1936). They beautifully illustrate the easy,
almost unconscious way people in groups influ-
ence one another to become similar. Sherif made
use of the autokinetic effect, which is a visual
illusion that makes a stationary pinpoint of light in
a dark room appear to move. Sherif asked subjects
in his experiments to estimate how far the light moved.
When individuals estimated the light alone,
their estimates were often quite divergent. In one
condition of the experiment, however, subjects
viewed the light with two or three others, giving
their estimates out loud, allowing them to hear
each other’s judgments. In this group setting,
individuals gave initial estimates that were similar
to one another and rapidly converged on a single
group estimate. Different groups settled on very
different estimates but all groups developed a
consensus judgment that remained stable over time.
After three sessions together, group members
were split up. When tested alone they continued to
use their group standard to guide their personal
estimates. This indicates that the group members
had not merely induced one another to conform
in outward behavior. They had influenced one
another’s very perception of the light so that they
believed the group estimate to be the most accu-
rate judgment of reality.
In another condition, Sherif first tested sub-
jects alone so that they developed personal stan-
dards for their estimates. He then put together two
or three people with widely divergent personal
standards and tested them in a group setting. Over
three group sessions, individual estimates merged
into a group standard. Thus, even when partici-
pants had well-established personal standards for
judging, mere exposure to the differing judgments
of others influenced them to gradually abandon
their divergent points of view for a uniform group
standard. This occurred despite a setting where
the subjects, all strangers, had no power over one
another and were only minimally organized
as a group.
The Sherif experiment suggests that conformity
pressures in groups are subtle and extremely pow-
erful. But critics quickly noted that the extreme
ambiguity of the autokinetic situation might be
responsible for Sherif’s results. In such an ambigu-
ous situation, participants have little to base their
personal judgments on, so perhaps it is not sur-
prising that they turn to others to help them
decide what to think. Do people conform when
the task is clear and unambiguous? Will they yield
to a group consensus if it is obvious that the
consensus is wrong? These are the questions Solo-
mon Asch (1951, 1956) addressed in his classic
experiments.To eliminate ambiguity, Asch employed clear-
cut judgment tasks where subjects chose which of
three comparison lines was the same length as a
standard line. The correct answers were so obvi-
ous that individuals working alone reached 98
percent accuracy. Similar to the Sherif experi-
ment, Asch’s subjects gave their judgments in the
presence of seven to nine of their peers (all partici-
pants were male college students). Unknown to
the single naive subject in each group, all other
group members were confederates of the experi-
menter. On seven of twelve trials, as the confeder-
ates announced their judgments one by one, they
unanimously gave the wrong answer. It was ar-
ranged so that the naive subject always gave his
judgment after the confederates.
The subject here was placed in a position of
absolute conflict. Should he abide by what he
knows to be true or go along with the unanimous
opinion of others? A third of the time subjects
violated the evidence of their own senses to agree
with the group.The Asch experiments clearly demonstrated
that people feel pressure to conform to group
standards even when they know the standards are
wrong. It is striking that Asch, like Sherif, obtained
these results with a minimal group situation. The