Harvard Business Essentials, Decision Making

•A few subjects claimed that they really believed that the answers

of the experimenter’s confederates were correct.

• The number of conforming subjects dropped dramatically when

they had an “ally” in the group. Asch occasionally had one of

his confederates give the right answer. Having even one ally in

the group was enough encouragement for conformity to drop

like a rock.

The implications of Asch’s findings for business decision makers

are obvious and troubling. Not wanting to be viewed as out of step

with their colleagues, some people will put their own opinions aside

and fall in line with the majority. We can speculate that this is dou-

bly true when ...