The Psychology Book

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Conformism

BEFORE

1880s Hippolyte Bernheim, a French physician, uses hypnosis to demonstrate the concept of “suggestibility.”

1935 Muzafer Sherif’s conformism experiment leads Asch to develop the Asch Paradigm.

AFTER

1963 Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments show that people conform for an authority figure despite experiencing a moral conflict.

1976 Serge Moscovici argues that a consistent minority can be influential.

1979 Knud S. Larsen, a Danish psychologist, shows that conformity may be tied to cultural climate.

Social psychologist Solomon Asch challenged our idea of ourselves as autonomous beings when he devised an experiment to ...