The Asch experiment
In each round, say which line is the same length as the reference line. The other participants answer before you.
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Try the experiment: your result will appear here, next to what most people do.
What just happened (read it after the experiment)
What most people do: In the original study, participants went along with the group in 32% of the rigged rounds.
In some rounds, the whole group gave the same wrong answer, with confidence.
In 1951, Solomon Asch brought together groups of students who, all but one, were his accomplices. Faced with a unanimous group giving a wrong answer, the real participants went along with the group about a third of the time, and three-quarters of them gave in at least once.
Yet a single ally is enough to make conformity collapse: when one accomplice gives the right answer, the group’s pressure falls apart.
More experiments
Sources
- Solomon Asch, “Studies of independence and conformity,” Psychological Monographs, 1956.