In How Markets Fail, John Cassidy describes classic psychology experiments conducted by Swarthmore’s Solomon Asch in the 1950s. Asch asked groups of subjects to make judgments about visual exhibits, but all but one of the “subjects” in each group were shills working for him. The shills intentionally said the wrong thing, with dramatic impact on the one real subject. Cassidy explains, “This setup placed the genuine subject in an awkward spot: [As Asch put it,] ‘Upon him we have brought to bear two opposed forces: the evidence of his senses and the unanimous opinion of a group of his peers.’ ” A
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