Abstract
Several strangers sit together in a room, staring at three black lines on a white card. Their task seems simple: choose the line that matches the length of a line printed on a second card. One by one, the strangers correctly choose the matching line, and the task repeats with new white cards and new black lines. The correct answer is always obvious, but after a few rounds, one man suddenly finds himself alone in giving the correct response. What he does not know is that the others have been instructed to begin choosing incorrect lines. Eventually, despite what his own eyes tell him, the man aligns with the group and begins choosing the wrong line each time. In this landmark experiment, psychologist Solomon Asch found that the desire for social conformity can be stronger than truth, concluding that people will abandon their entire decision-making process and even “call white black” for the sake of conformity.
Recommended Citation
Jonathan G. Jain,
An Unnecessary Burden: Why It Is Time to Eliminate McDonnell Douglas from ADA Failure-to-Accommodate Claims,
91 Mo. L. Rev.
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Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol91/iss2/13