Asch Experiments

Solomon Asch (1907–96) conducted pioneering social psychological experiments on conformity in group settings, and the processes by which we form impressions of other people. His conformity experiments are of particular importance, in that they displayed how the desire to conform to social pressures may be so great that it overrides our own perceptions. Asch emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1920, completed a PhD at Columbia University in 1932, and worked for 19 years as a faculty member at Swarthmore College. In addition to his seminal research on conformity and person perception, he wrote the classic text Social Psychology (1952). This text had a profound impact on the early development of the field.