Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Interestingly, three out of four test subjects answered with the
faulty majority at least some of the time. And once people
started conforming, they were much more likely to continue.
The test subjects were interviewed after the experiment and reported
some interesting reactions.
Of those who answered with the majority, some became
convinced that they were wrong and the majority was right;
they believed that it was important for them to be right because
they did not want to spoil the data for the researcher or because
they did not want to stick out.
But as Asch wrote, “More disquieting were the reactions of
subjects who construed their differences from the majority
all costs they must hide. On this basis they desperately tried
to merge with the majority, not realizing the longer-range
consequences to themselves.”
Universally, everyone who participated in the test said
that independence was preferable to conformity. Yet most
conformed; that is, they acted counter to what they knew to be
false and counter to their own values.
When Asch expanded the study, he found that the larger the
majority, the stronger the pull to conform, but that if even one
person dissented before the test subject, the subject was much more
likely to also voice his or her view. Asch showed empirically that
having someone else agree with you is a powerful tool in making
people willing to take a contrary position. But if that person were
deserted by the fellow dissenter, conformity followed rapidly and
continued even after the deserter left the group.
Notice again the move from studying individual elements, to
investigation of the mind of the individual. Freud moved the study
to relationships. Social psychology began to locate the mind, in
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