Conformity

Abstract

Are people generally conformists who are easily influenced by their peers? Or are they independent thinkers who stick to their individual beliefs? In the 1950s, experimental psychologist Solomon Asch was becoming increasingly discontented as accruing evidence indicated that people were highly suggestible. Critical of this perspective, Asch 1956 began a line of research that he expected would invalidate and dispel the notion that humans are “like sheep.”