Your Thoughts Are Not Your Own Volume Two: Marketing, Movies and Music

by Neil Sanders

Asch discovered that in over a third of cases, the single participant who was not in on the test was swayed by the opinions of others and, with no prompting from others, blindly agreed with them. In these cases the participant went along with the group and gave incorrect answers. When asked about the clearly incorrect answers participants defended themselves and claimed that even when they knew the given answer was wrong, they stuck with the majority decision as they believed the group knew something that they themselves did not. Asch noted that 74% of subjects conformed with the incorrect opinion of the majority at least once. The rate of conformity was reduced when one or more, other than the real test subject, involved in the test provided the correct answer. False answers also fell when participants were allowed to write down their responses rather than verbally stating them as this provided the required anonymity from the group.