Eight people were in the room. Six of them had spoken and it was the seventh person’s turn. He looked clearly uncomfortable. He was about to make a decision that he would have to live with the rest of his life. A choice that penetrated his moral core as a person. He made his final decision and spoke his answer. It was done.
Solomon Asch was watching. Asch was a pioneer in Social Psychology. He designed and conducted a series of many experiments trying to understand individual judgment, including moral and ethical judgment, and the powers that, for better or worse, influence it.
The number of participants in the experiments varied, but often there were eight. One of them was always told they would be part of an experiment on visual judgment. This person believed the other seven people were told the same thing and were participating in the experiment on the same terms. What they didn’t know was that the other seven were all actors following a script.
The group of eight was assembled at a table and shown a card that looked like this:
Participants were told to look at the line on the left and decide which of the 3 lines on the right were the same length: A, B or C. Take a look for yourself and decide which one is the same length.
The group was shown a total of 18 different cards that looked like this, each with different line configurations. They were asked this question 18 times, one for each of the different cards.
The single REAL experiment participant (not an actor) was always seated next to last in the answering sequence. He was the seventh person and heard the answers of six other people before he had to tell the group his own answer.
The first four times that the group was shown the cards and asked to match the lines, all of the actors and then the participant responded with correct answers. It seemed easy.
On the fifth card, the actors started to respond with an answer that was clearly wrong. Then, in the following 12 of the 18 times, the actors all (unanimously) gave the exact same wrong answer. For example, in the example above, they all said that “B” was the same length as the line on the left, when “B” is clearly longer.
The person who was being studied was suddenly facing an uncomfortable choice. Six people before them had (very confidently) given what was clearly and OBJECTIVELY the wrong answer. Decision time. They could believe their own eyes. Or they could ignore what their eyes were seeing, and what they KNEW was right, and go along with the confident majority, even though the majority was clearly wrong.
Think about that for a moment. How many people would you guess would choose to speak up with the truth, the truth that they could clearly see for themselves, that they KNEW was right? Especially because this is a test of their OWN visual judgment.
I wish it was 100%.
It was only 25%. One out of four. A minority.
These 25% never deviated. They consistently answered with what they saw with their own eyes, with the right answer. Even though videos show they were often clearly uncomfortable speaking up. It was hard. They stayed true.
The other 75% at least one time betrayed what they knew was right and went with the majority wrong answer. 37% went with the majority incorrect answer every single time for TWELVE times.
You can see how clearly uncomfortable they are in this 2 min video of 5 people in the original experiment series: The Asch Experiment - YouTube
Don’t think this was a fluke. Or, “That was then and this is now.” The experiment has been repeated many times.
In interviews afterward, Solomon Asch asked the 75% who went with the majority and gave answers they KNEW were wrong, he asked them the big question, “Why?”
The answers he got were:
“When I heard the other people’s answers, I pushed the right answer out of my mind.”
“I was suspicious but not sufficiently confident to go against the majority.”
“I knew what the right answer was, but I didn’t want to seem out of step.”
“Wanted to avoid conflict.”
“I knew what the right answer was, but I went along because I was afraid of being ridiculed by the others.”
Some of them distorted reality and decided the others must be right (“I must be wrong”). They stopped believing their own eyes, “Others must know better”.
In later experiments, Solomon Asch, as well as later experimenters, varied some of the elements and discovered:
If there was even ONE other person who gave the correct answer, only 5% of the people being studied went with the majority. Dramatic drop in conformity to wrong answers. They just needed one other person to publicly support them. Then they had courage.
But if halfway through the questions, the experimenters removed this support person who also gave right answers, once the partner left, people immediately switched and started going along with the majority wrong answers. They couldn’t continue to hold up on their own.
If there were only 2 people in the experiment, the person was in the room with only one other person who gave wrong answers, and they weren’t influenced by hearing just this one person’s wrong answer. They didn’t go along with it - they consistently gave right answers.
The conformity increased when there were more people, specifically starting with groups of 3, so even two other people giving wrong answers were enough to influence the person away from speaking the right answer. Group size mattered. Groups of 5 exerted a stronger influence than a group of 3.
If the person did not have to state their answer publicly, if they wrote it down and no one saw it during the questioning, they consistently gave right answers, even if they could hear others give wrong answers. The fact of not having to voice their answer publicly was influential in their maintaining their integrity. They maintained it while it was privately held. But if they had to say their answer out loud where the others could hear, they caved and 75% went with the majority wrong answer at least once and 37% all the time.
If the person being studied was given information about the other participants that led them to believe that the others had higher status or more authority than they did, they discounted their own observations, deferred to the others even more frequently and gave even more wrong answers. The perceived “status” and “authority” of the other participants greatly impacted (defeated) their own power of observation and their own judgment. They handed over their own power. “They have higher status or more authority – I don’t know as much as they do.”
It is stunning to realize that there was no instruction to conform given, suggested, or even implied. Not from the experimenter. Not from the other participants. The pressure and demand to conform came entirely and completely from the pressure the person put on themselves. They were their own executioner.
There are many, many situations in life in which each of us is the seventh person.
The choice is always whether or not you allow the endless calls to conform to affect what you do with what you see.
But unlike Solomon Asch’s work, this is not an experiment. This is your life.
You are in this life with a unique pair of eyes. Only you see exactly what you see. It’s supposed to be this way.
The good news is that we are not stuck in a one-time experiment. We get to make our choice to stay true to ourselves over and over again, many times each day.
What happens when you live in a world of the 75%? How do you help them gain the ability to be true to themselves? How to gently wake them up and get them to really look? And say what they see.
Let me tell you what starts the transformation of the 75%.
We’ve been taught to underestimate the power of being the example. “One person can’t make a difference.”
Most people are taught that in order to achieve amazing outcomes you have to control other people, overtly or covertly.
What the world needs to learn is that they can achieve outcomes by learning to control themselves.
Being the example is one facet of that.
The 75% don't get transformed through overt control, they get transformed as a natural byproduct of you controlling yourself.
That is why the magic is effortless.
There is nothing more powerful than someone staying true to themselves. The energy is strong. It is clear.
It is also “contagious,” which means it will slowly but surely transform and inspire the 75% to walk in alignment with their own truth.
This is just one of the gifts you have to offer to the world…
Clearly this takes causative and extraordinary communication skills to succeed in doing what others haven’t been able to accomplish. If 2022 is about developing your communication superpowers, I’m happy to help you have your best year ever. Just let me know.
Be the cause!