The Asch Conformity Experiment

Cidette Rice

Mr.Roddy

IHSS
9/26/19 

The Asch Conformity Experiment

‘If all your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you?’ 

I’m sure many can remember a time in their life where they have been asked this, typically as a response for wanting trendy clothes or the newest IPhone. It’s used to brush off the asker, saying that conformity is a bad thing, that it could have consequences. If this is so, why do so many people conform? Why would people participate in conformity if it’s viewed negatively?

The Asch Conformity Experiment was a sociological test on various groups of college students. All but one student in the group knew what was going on, and they were playing the role of unassuming student. The students who were on the inside were called ‘the confederates’. During the experiment, confederates and outlier alike would be shown two pieces of paper, the first having line ‘A’ drawn on it, and the second showing lines ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’, with two of the lines on the second paper being obviously longer or shorter. The students’ duty was to match line ‘A’ to it’s twin, and that was that. Asch, the experiment director, hypothesized that despite knowing the correct answer, outliers would conform to confederate’s expectations in order to fit in with the group.

Multiple experiments were run. One where everyone answered correctly, and others where the confederates all purposefully answered wrong and awaited the outlier’s reaction. Only one out of every four outliers answered correctly when the confederates did not, despite everyone answering correctly in the other tests run. 

Although this experiment was performed in the 1950s, I’m prone to believing that societal conformity and expectations still reign strong, especially for those who grew up with heavy influence from the G.I Joe generation/Silent Generation (1930-1945) and Baby Boomers. Obviously, this is not the case for everyone. Both my parents are Baby Boomers, yet I consider myself to lean away from their ideals of conformity and what I can and can’t do. While they disapprove of piercings and tattoos, I disagree, and believe that they’re interesting and a rather creative way to express one’s self. 

I feel as though many people, including past generations, felt the constant pressure to conform despite the need to be an individual. This thought can also be applied to other situations with more severe consequences, such as being a ‘witch’ in olden times, and more recently, being LGBT+ or mentally/physically disabled.

There is so much diversity that comes with being an individual and having different ideas, and there are many negative connotations that come with restricting that. What fun is the rainbow if it is sorted into red, yellow and blue? What change is there in playing video games, or sports, if the moves are predictable and conform to expectations? How would people decide the most effective solution to a problem, if they're too worried about being an outlier that they don't express the correct opnion? There is never a good reason for harmful conformity, and there is never a bad reason for harmless individualism, and those who say differnet are the schrodinger's cat of conformity.