Asch conformity findings are exaggerated in psychology textbooks

Evidence

Curiously though, they often don’t seem aware of the critiques. I mention this because Asch’s findings, whilst undoubtedly important, have also been exaggerated. An analysis of twenty major psychology textbooks found that most of the descriptions leave out the fact that only a small minority, 5 per cent, were always swayed by the crowd, whereas 95 per cent challenged the majority at least once. This illustrates that extreme distortions of evidence are (still) relatively infrequent and that they take place in the context of an internal struggle between a desire for accuracy and other, competing motivations. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 126

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Asch’s conformity findings were exaggerated in textbooks that omit the 95-percent dissent rate — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 126; Canonical psychology findings circulate with their critiques rarely taught — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 126