Stanley Milgram's research on obedience grew out of earlier studies that Solomon Asch conducted on conformity, the topic of this video and a close cousin of obedience. Conformity is a change in behavior or belief as a result of social pressure, and to see how Solomon Ash studied it, let's look at an eight-minute video that Dateline NBC has generously made available to our class. >> When you least expect it, you're elected. You're the star today. Smile! You're on Candid Camera. >> This man finds himself in a strange predicament. So does this man. He's in an elevator facing front, but inexplicably, everyone else is facing the back. It's the dilemma presented by TV's Candid Camera 35 years ago, pitting individuality against the pull of group pressure. >> He's very unhappy, you'll see him. He doesn't know whether to go inside and face front or outside and face back. Here's a fella with his hat on. >> Over and over, the unsuspecting TV stars all reacted the same way: like sheep. >> A moment later, we'll open the door; everybody's changed positions. >> Although it was just for laughs, Candid Camera also raised serious questions about conformity for all of us. Would you be strong enough to stand up for yourself if you're a minority of one? What is conformity? >> Conformity is when we give in to the group. >> Social psychologist Dr. Anthony Pratkanis has studied conformity for two decades. >> On some occasions, on many occasions, it can be very, very difficult, very, very negative. So, for instance, when the group is wrong and you're right, conformity is bad. >> How powerful is the pull of negative group pressure? We wanted to know, so Dateline enlisted Professor Pratkanis and his psychology students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to replicate Dr. Solomon Asch's classic 1950s conformity study. They did what Asch did: design a simple exercise, matching the line on the left with the one of identical length on the right, and then have the students, who were plants, give intentionally wrong answers claiming, for example, Line 1 on this card is the right match. >> One. >> One. >> One. >> One. >> One. >> The subjects, always in seat six, are then faced with the experiment's fundamental question: conform by giving answers they know to be absurdly wrong, or defy the group and give answers they know to be correct? >> Go ahead. >> And there was one more part of the experiment designed to draw the subjects in and make the exercise more convincing. Initially, the plants actually give the correct answers... >> Two. >> Two. >> Two. >> Two. >> …at least the first few times. >> We have consensus. >> But as the rounds continue and the plants do give those wrong answers, try playing along. Watch these subjects, who were told they were part of a visual perception experiment, respond to the mounting pressure of the group solidarity and ask yourself: What would you do? We'll start with Marie, as she hears the clearly wrong answers. >> One. >> One. >> She glances at the leader, seemingly for help, yet she sticks to her guns and defies the group. >> Three. >> And keeps disagreeing... >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> although her resistance is never easy. >> One. >> As Marie stares intently at this card, she can't believe her ears. >> One. >> One. >> One. >> The urge to join the group and conform builds with each wrong answer, and she suffers for every right answer she gives. >> Two. >> What does she finally do? >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> Two. >> She would not conform. >> You see the worry on her face, concern, very painful to stand up to the group, but she stood up to the group. >> It was hard for her to do that. >> Yes, because the pressure of >> "I might be wrong. I might be the fool here." >> There was a lot of pressure in that room. There was a lot of tension that I felt. I can see where somebody would buckle and just lose it. >> And you didn't like being different? >> No, but I didn't want to be wrong either. >> Up next, Brian. What will he do? >> One. >> One. >> The first few times the plants pick the obviously incorrect line, Brian confidently defies the group. >> One. >> Three. >> Confident, because just look at the card— Of course, the only logical answer is three. And this card. Nobody could possibly say anything but three is the correct answer here as well, right? >> Just watch. >> Two. >> Notice Brian's eyes start to droop, and listen to his voice get softer. >> Three. >> When the group gets it wrong again. And again. >> Three. >> Three. >> Two. >> For four rounds now he's been fighting the good fight against conformity. >> Three. >> Three. >> But, with the pressure mounting... >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> He just can't fight anymore. >> Three. >> And in succeeding rounds with Brian continuing to give answers he knows to be wrong... >> Two. >> Two. >> he only gets sadder and softer. >> Three. >> By the final trial, he's a thoroughly beaten man. >> One. >> I gave up.There were times when I didn't even look at the lines and said the answer. I became quiet, decided that I wasn't playing the game right, so I just played along. >> One of the participants in our demonstration was a bit different: this man, George, older and an artist. >> Basically I consider myself to be a nonconformist. >> And one of the student plants sized him up exactly that way. >> I felt he would take one look at us and say a bunch of kids, and then go his own way. >> Would he? >> Two. >> Two. >> Two. >> Three. >> He holds out for two rounds. But what happens on the very next round? >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> A total reversal. And what about the next round? >> Three. >> Three. >> Three. >> George, it so happens, not only goes along— he dives in headfirst. >> One. >> He gives wrong answers with an air of total certainty. >> Three. >> I didn't want to be different anymore. >> The pressure got to me, and I caved in. >> Three. >> Three. Even though I knew it wasn't the truth, it made me feel more comfortable. >> Of all the subjects, George conformed the most— the last nine times in a row. Dr. Pratkanis acknowledges that despite decades of research by social psychologists, there is no way of predicting with certainty what George or the other subjects would do. >> It's important that we walk into situations and say, hey, I'm a human being, it could happen to me. >> In the conformity test you just saw, nearly 60% of the subjects, 9 of 16, succumbed to the group pressure. These results, a half century later, essentially support the findings in Dr. Solomon Asch's original 1950 experiment. And today, in everyday life, all of us are influenced by group pressure. >> Strike the pose. >> Whether it's in fashion trends, doing the wave at sporting events, or following the herd in business... >> This way! I don't know. >> as this TV commercial humorously suggests. >> Isn't that scene from Candid Camera just amazing? I never get tired of looking at that. Anyway, an interesting historical footnote is that Stanley Milgram was not only a research assistant for Solomon Asch, but in fact, he conducted his doctoral dissertation on the topic of conformity using a version of the Asch technique. So, Asch's research on conformity in the 1950s laid the groundwork for Milgram's research on obedience in the early 1960s. Throughout his adult life, Milgram considered Asch his main scientific influence, and he saw Asch's research as a kind of intellectual jewel that could be endlessly rotated to yield interesting results. In the basic procedure shown in the clip from Dateline NBC, there were 18 trials in each experimental session, and on 12 of these trials, which Ash called "critical trials," the majority unanimously chose the wrong answer. Under these conditions, participants gave incorrect answers in the direction of the majority on roughly one third of all critical trials, three out of four participants conformed on at least one trial, and one third of participants conformed on half or more of the critical trials. In other words, most people in the situation rendered at least some judgments that contradicted the evidence of their senses. But, as Milgram mentioned, Asch also rotated the jewel by conducting several variations of the experiment. For example, in one set of experiments, Asch varied the number of opposing confederates from 1 person all the way up to 15 people, wanting to see if conformity increased as the majority increased. What he found is that when participants were faced with only one confederate who contradicted their views, they were hardly affected at all. Most participants answered correctly on nearly all trials. When participants were opposed by two confederates, they conformed to the majority view 14% of the time. When participants were opposed by three confederates, they conformed on 32% of the critical trials—quite a jump. But adding more confederates beyond that tends to have diminishing effects. In another set of experiments, Asch broke the unanimity of the majority by adding either a second participant, who was seated in the fourth position and usually offered correct judgments (because remember, even 32% conformity implies 68% nonconformity, so usually they're giving the correct answers), or he planted a confederate in the fourth position who was instructed to give the correct answer. Asch wanted to see what would happen when the majority was no longer unanimous, and the effect he found was enormous. Conformity fell to roughly one fourth of previous levels— that is, participants conformed on roughly one fourth as many critical trials as when the majority was unanimous. In fact, Asch found that a unanimous majority of three was far more powerful than a majority of eight with one dissenter, which says something about the power of dissent. Asch even looked at whether he could increase the difference in line length between the majority's answer and the correct answer so much that no participants would conform to the majority. He failed to find that point, however. Even when the lines differed by as much as seven inches—a huge amount given how close people were to the lines— some participants continued to yield to the majority. Solomon Asch published several other variations, but let's return to his main core finding: that is, participants in the original experiments conformed on roughly one out of every three critical trials, and three out of four participants conformed at least once. Does that seem like a lot or a little, and why? Let's pause for a pop-up question so that you can answer that for yourself, and then, in the next video, I'll share with you what psychologists have traditionally said to that question, what they say today, and also we'll discuss the role of gender, culture, and the impact of numeric minorities on majorities. So we'll flip things around.
