The Asch Conformity Experiment was an experiment conducted by Solomon Asch. The intent of the experiment was to see how much social pressure plays a factor in conformity.

Have you ever had a discussion with your friends and agreed with a belief that the majority of them believed in, even though you didn’t actually agree with them?

I have. Many, many times too.

This effect is something psychologist Solomon Asch called conformity.

In 1951, Asch wanted to investigate the powers of social pressure and how it affects conformity. He wanted to understand a person’s threshold when it came to conforming to a group’s belief.

The Asch Conformity Experiment

To do this, he had 50 male participants do a “vision test.” He would place a participant in a room with seven stooges, who pre-picked an answer. The answer that they picked would also be an obviously wrong answer. The researcher in the room put up an image of a line (target line) and then another image with three labelled lines. One of the lines would be the same height as the target line and the other two would either be shorter or longer.

After putting up the images, the researcher asked each “participant,” one by one, which line they thought was equal to the target line. The stooges would all give the wrong answer 12 out of the 18 trials (critical trials). Once it was the actual participant’s turn, he had two choices: conform or give the correct answer.

Asch also had a controlled group where there were only one real participant and no stooges to sway the decision.

The Findings

On average, 32 percent of the participants conformed. In the 12 critical trials, however, 75 percent of the participants followed along and gave the wrong answer.

Via Simply Psychology:

“Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participant never conformed. In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.”

So what do these findings mean? Well, people will tend to conform to the popular view if there is social pressure. Also, a person’s beliefs could have been developed through the beliefs of the masses.

Criticism

The results from the Asch Conformity Experiment has been criticized for not actually studying conformity. Critics have said that some of the participants may have given the wrong answer because they didn’t want to cause conflict.

Additionally, a number of critics claim that the study doesn’t have a diverse sample as the participants were all males from the same age group. It doesn’t look at how a female or someone from an older (or younger) age group would’ve responded.

Student Loan Debt and Conformity

In a report from The Guardian, American post-secondary students, on average, owe $37,000 in student debt. This is a number that is constantly rising year after year. But even though a job or career is not guaranteed with the achievement of a four-year degree, many young students are still going to college and getting into debt.

Why?

It’s probably because this is what the masses are doing, so an individual is more likely to do it too (well, this plays a part in it).

The majority of people in the developed world believe that college is a cure, that it will improve their life. And this is true for some people. Not every college-goer will benefit from their education or degree. So why is higher education always prescribed, even though it will put a lot of young people into financial debt?

Could it be because it is an old, archaic belief that was never challenged? And people just follow along with it because it’s the way things are and a lot of people are doing it? I’m pretty sure it is. At least (a big) part of it.

However, people going to college or believing that college is a solution for many problems could also be a matter of them not wanting to conflict with society (as the criticism suggest). But I personally believe that this represents only a small number of people.

Conclusion

The point I’m trying to make is that there are a lot of beliefs out there (ridiculous ones, I might add) that still exist only because large amounts of people believe it. And its base is able to grow because of conformity.

So what can be done to prevent conformity on a large scale? Honestly, nothing. There will always be people who conform, even though deep in their minds, they don’t fully believe the ideology.

It’s just a human flaw.

However, to ease this, we could encourage people to start thinking more critically. To be more outside the box and question everything that they are told. We should urge people to not believe everything that is believed and be more stubborn with what they accept as truth.

Do you think this would work? If you do, why? If you don’t, what solutions would you suggest? Share your thoughts below in the comments.