Why are so many people ready to accept/believe misinformation or outright lies? Are they too trusting? Too lazy to think for themselves? Are they taking what they perceive to be the path of least resistance? Is it a shortcut to popularity or acceptance? Is it one thing or a combination of all of the above and more?
Solomon Asch was a Polish American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in the filed of social psychology. His work in impression formation, conformity, and prestige suggestion attempted to answer questions about human behavior.
According to Asch, “Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated. No error in thinking about social facts is more serious than the failure to see their place and function.”
Asch is best known for his conformity experiments where he demonstrated the effects of group pressure on individual opinions.
In one set of experiments , Asch wanted to determine if people’s opinions about a hypothetical person could be swayed by the characteristics attributed to them. The participants in Group A read the description of a person who was intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, and cautious. In Group B the same person was described as intelligent, skillful, industrious, cold, determined, practical, and cautious. Both groups were asked to write down their opinions about the person based solely on the description they were given. Group A’s impressions of the person described as “warm” were more positive than Group B’s “cold” person. The alteration of one characteristic made a huge difference. Asch went further by substituting the words, “polite” and “blunt” in place of “warm” and “cold” without changing any of the other words. Under those descriptions, the favorability of the person was similar in both groups. He surmised that cold and warm were viewed as central characteristics while polite and blunt were considered peripheral characteristics. Words matter. They can be used strategically to influence our opinions.
In another set of experiments, Asch altered the placement of the same set of descriptive words. Group A was given the description of their hypothetical person in this word order: intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious. Group B’s hypothetical person was described as envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent. Group A perceived their person more favorably because the favorable traits were listed first. Group B reacted strongly to the negative traits that were listed first. The same words in different order produced different results.
Asch presented participants with four groups of character traits:
Set A: quick, skillful, helpful
Set B: quick, clumsy, helpful
Set C: slow, skillful, helpful
Set D: slow, clumsy, helpful
Only one characteristic remains the same, helpful. Eighty-seven percent of participants determined that Set A and Set C most closely resembled each other and 85% of participants believed Set B most resembled Set D. People determined that it’s more important to be skillful than quick and less desirable to be clumsy even if you are quick.
Asch and his associates were interested in how propaganda was used in World War II to get people to believe and accept what their governments wanted them to believe. How do you get people to believe they should sacrifice for the war effort?
Using data gained through observation, psychologists determined that people can be persuaded by messages differently based on the author of the message. The more prestigious/well-known (famous) the author is, the more readily most people will believe/accept their message. Asch took this observation a step further. He theorized participants weren’t blindly accepting a message because of who said it. He concluded that the meaning of the message is interpreted differently depending on the author of the message.
Asch also believed group forces had the power to change opinions and perceptions. In a well-known set of experiments on conformity, Asch used 123 white male college students between 17 and 25 years old. The students were told they were taking part in an experiment in visual judgement. Each test subject was placed in a group with 6-8 people who secretly knew the true purpose of the experiment. The group was sent to a classroom where they were shown a card with a line on it followed by another card with three lines on it labeled 1, 2, and 3. Each participant was asked to pick the line that matched the line on the first card. The test subject was always asked last. For three rounds, all members of the group answered honestly. On the fourth round the 6-8 people in the group started to give incorrect answers. This continued and in 12 of the 16 trials, they all answered incorrectly. Twenty-three percent of the test subjects in the experiment stuck to their original answers, but 77% were persuaded to agree with the group because their perception of the line changed to match the group’s. Some test subjects completely changed all their answers to fall in line with the group. Others dissented, but eventually started to agree.
The procedure created doubt about something these test subjects could plainly see with their own eyes. Asch found that group pressure increased significantly once three people in the group agreed on the wrong answer. When all 6-8 people gave the wrong answer, the results didn’t change significantly meaning a simple majority has an enormous influence in a group. However, he also found that when one person in the group answered correctly, the power of the majority to influence the test subject declined.
Why would you not believe your own eyes? Sometimes we’re not confident in our own abilities, so any dissent can derail us. Other times, we want to be liked or be part of a popular group. Sometimes we just don’t want to be perceived as wrong, or we don’t want to be on the losing team. Even if we know we’re correct.
If you’ve ever watched the Senate or the House of Representatives vote on a controversial bill or congressional appointment on CSPAN in recent years, you can see Asch’s experiment in action. Our legislators promise the people they will vote a certain way, but when the numbers start to change their votes change and follow party lines.
Where do you think you would fall? Are you one of the 23% who trust their own eyes or their sense of what’s accurate?
Photo of Solomon Asch:
By New York Times - Original publication: New York TimesImmediate source: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/science/28brai.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37733076
Photo of Asch’s Conformity Experiment Diagram:
By Saul McLeod - https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76348810