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Conformity: Going Along To Get Along
Social psychologists have long studied the many ways that groups exert pressures on members to conform. Conformity <glossary term> occurs when people change their behaviors or beliefs in response to real or imagined group pressure. Often we are genuinely uncertain about the accuracy or correctness of our own behavior. Or, we go along with the group simply out of our desire to be "right." Groups are said to exert informational influence on us when we use the opinions or actions of others as source of information, a guide to the "best" thing to do or say in an unfamiliar situation <Ref>(Deutsch and Gerard, 1955).
 While informational influence explains many situations where people conform, what happens when the "correct" response is clear? Will individuals go along with the judgments of other group members even if the others were clearly, unambiguously wrong? The social psychologist Solomon Asch addressed this question in a series of studies conducted in the 1950s. In the Asch <REF> (1955) procedure, participants briefly examine a card with a line drawn on it (see illustration), and then are shown a second card displaying three lines of different lengths (see illustration). From the three choices, they are then asked to choose the line that is the same length as the one seen on the first card. As you can see, for persons with normal eyesight, this should be a fairly easy choice to make. In fact, in this task people are able to correctly select the right line more than 95% of the time. But what if a majority of the people around you are apparently making the "wrong"choice?  Imagine that you have volunteered to participate in a psychology
experiment that you are told is a study of perception. You enter
a room with seven other students and sit down with them around
a large table. In Asch's experimental procedure, the other seven people in the room with you would actually be his assistants, pretending to be test subjects like yourself. These assistants, also called confederates, would be instructed ahead of time to intentionally give a false answer on some of the line judgments. As you were the only real subject in the experiment, it would be arranged that you would always end up giving your answer only after hearing what the others had to say. Even with a very easy and unambiguous decision to make, Asch found that the real participants caved in and publicly stated an incorrect answer about 35% of the time and 76% of the participants gave the popular (but clearly incorrect) answer at least once.
A number of factors that are likely to increase conformity pressures have been identified by social psychologists, including group size, stress, group cohesiveness, unanimity, and self-confidence. 
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For example, if you are eating in a Chinese restaurant
for the first time, you may have to look around the table and
observe other diners to determine the best way to hold your chopsticks.
In general, the more uncertain we are about how to respond appropriately
in a situation, the more we depend on clues from people around
us <Ref>(Baron et al., 1996).
The experimenter first shows you a simple line
drawn on a card. After a moment, he shows you a second card, this
one with three lines of different lengths drawn on it; the lines
are labeled Line A, Line B, and Line C. From those three lines
on the second card, 
you are asked to pick the one that appears
to you to be the same length as the one displayed on the first
card. At first, this appears to you to be an insultingly easy
task; it's rather obvious that Line B is a match to the
first one you were shown. You wait impatiently as the experimenter
asks each of the other participants in turn for their answers.
But wait a minute - as you listen to the other students give their
opinions, you become aware that they are all making the wrong
choice! Every one of the other participants is confidently telling
the experimenter that it is Line C that is the match, which to
your eyes is clearly incorrect. Now it is your turn to respond;
what do you say? Do you state out loud what to you is the self-evidently
correct answer - Line B - despite the troubling insistence on
Line C by the other participants? Or do you deny the evidence
of your senses and publicly say "Line C" as well?
In the Asch experiments, as in many instances of real-life conformity,
people adjusted their behavior to be more similar to the group
majority because of a desire to avoid the disapproval of others.
In many social groups, people who are similar to others find it
easier to get along with other group members, while deviance is
directly or indirectly punished in some fashion. When we conform
for emotional reasons, such as to avoid social rejection, ridicule,
or disapproval, the group is said to be exerting 
