Asch's Influences
Asch told his colleagues that his idea to study conformity was brought about by his childhood experiences in Poland. He recalls being 7 years old and staying up for his first Passover night. He recalls seeing his grandmother pour an extra glass of wine. When he asked who the glass of wine was for, she said that it was for the prophet Elijah. He then asked her whether he would really take a sip from the glass and his uncle assured him that he would. His uncle told him to watch very closely when the time came. "Filled with a sense of suggestion and expectation" Asch "thought he saw the level of wine in the cup drop just a bit." Thus, early in life, Asch succumbed to conformity, which fostered his idea to investigate conformity later in life.
Read more about this topic: Asch Conformity Experiments
Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)