Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch

Solomon Eliot Asch (September 14, 1907 – February 20, 1996) was an American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. He created seminal pieces of work in impression formation, prestige suggestion, conformity, and many other topics in social psychology. His work follows a common theme of Gestalt psychology that the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but the nature of the whole fundamentally alters the parts. Asch stated, “Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated. No error in thinking about social facts is more serious than the failure to see their place and function” (Asch, 1952, p. 61). He is most well known for his conformity experiments, in which he demonstrated the influence of group pressure on opinions.