The Power of Conformity Research shows that nearly 75% of Americans will conform to the group mentality. Although that number may not be as high today, a major study conducted by worldrenown social scientist Solomon Asch clearly proves that if given the opportunity to go against the group, most people will choose not to. The study, conducted in the 1950’s shows subjects in conversation with a group of peers will likely agree with each other out of comfort rather than speak a different opinion. Specifically, a group of friends was chosen and a specific politician was discussed. Six of the seven in the group shared the same political values and opinions while the seventh member held a significantly different political view. While the conversation was lively between the first six members of the group, it came time to ask member number seven. To no surprise to Asch, the seventh member of the group agreed with the first six members, even when clearly going against his own values and opinions. Several different studies were performed by Asch to
By David Horn confirm his theory including segregating genders to determine if males and females react different to conformity. Females showed an even greater percentage of group conformity than that of their male counterparts. Asch went on to study this phenomenon at an even more intense pace, changing course from social topics to clear displays of facts. In one study, he used a group of people and showed them all cards containing a display of lines. He called this the visual perception study. The first few runs through it was clear that as they were matching the different lengths of these lines in front of them, everyone agreed on what the facts were. In the final study, Asch provided a twist. The first seven people were instructed to intentionally answer the question wrong. This made things very difficult to the eighth person in the study. By the time it was time for that individual to answer, what was clearly initially and easy decision, was no longer easy. This person had the chose to decide it was clear and the other subjects were wrong, or self-evaluate and cause
himself to question what he was seeing to such a point that he would conform to the collectives answer under pressure.
Several other factors have been determined to play a role during this research, not just gender. Among the other factors is group size. For example, the larger the size of the group, the less likely people are to conform as they begin to develop conspiracy theories. Similar studies have been done since that of Asch’s determinations and this has shown that in the United States those percentages have gone down compared to other, more collectivist countries. As the United States is still considered a diverse individualist country whose percentages of clear conformity has gone down with time, it is clear to see that the original studies of Asch still shows that conformity is alive and well in our nation and countries around the globe.