A Nonconformist Account of The Asch Experiments

Personality and Social Psychology
Review
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A Nonconformist Account of the Asch Experiments: Values, Pragmatics, and Moral Dilemmas
Bert H. Hodges and Anne L. Geyer
Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2006 10: 2
DOI: 10.1207/s15327957pspr1001_1
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Personality and Social Psychology Review

2006, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2-19
A Nonconformist Account of the Asch Experiments:

Values, Pragmatics, and Moral Dilemmas
Bert H. Hodges
Department of Psychology
Gordon College
Anne L. Geyer
Department of Psychology
Florida State University
This article offers a new approach to Asch's (1956) influential studies relating
physical and social perception. Drawing on research on values, conversational
pragmatics, cross-cultural comparisons, and negotiation, the authors challenge the
normative assumptions that have led psychologists to interpret the studies in terms
of conformity. A values-pragmatics account is offered that suggests that participants attempt to realize multiple values (e.g., truth, social solidarity) in an inherently frustrating situation by tacitly varying patterns of dissent and agreement to
communicate larger scale truths and cooperative intentions. Alternative theories
(e.g., embarrassment, attribution) are compared and empirical implications of the
values-pragmatics account are evaluated. The possibility of multiple strategies promoting group survival and the proper role of moral evaluation in social psychological research are considered.
Despite their fame, Asch's (1951, 1956) studies on

the relation of physical and social perception are often
misunderstood and misinterpreted in important ways
(Campbell, 1990; Friend, Rafferty, & Bramel, 1990;
Hats, 1985; Levine, 1999; McCauley & Rozin,
2003). The experiments provide powerful evidence for
people's tendency to tell the truth even when others do
not. They also provide compelling evidence of people's concern for others and their views. However, the
studies are almost never described in such terms.
Rather they are often presented as "one of the most dramatic illustrations of conformity, of blindly going
along with the group, even when the individual realizes
that by doing so he turns his back on reality and truth"
(Moscovici, 1985b, p. 349).
We intend to make a case for reconsidering this consensus view by offering an alternative explanation-a
values-pragmatics account-of the Asch experiments.
We argue that the Asch situation is socially and morally more complex than has generally been acknowledged, thus challenging the normative standards by
which participants' behavior is usually judged. The focus of our account is that there are multiple values and
multiple relations that properly constrain the actions of
those in the Asch situation and that participants are
motivated to maintain the integrity of these multiple
values and relations. Even though the Asch situation
intentionally puts these values and relations in tension,
participants work pragmatically to negotiate these con-
Here [is] a theme central to my thought: that there is an

inescapable moral dimension to human existence. It
follows that investigation must take account of that
proposition. Yet psychologists have been among the
most determined opponents of this claim. (Asch,
1990, p. 53)
Most ... conformity studies have been done by researchers who ... have implicitly created a deprecating social distance between themselves and those fellow human beings whom they have duped into
"conforming." ... How provocatively paradoxical it is
that Asch ... has been himself most stubbornly independent of the consensuses among his fellow social
psychologists (Campbell, 1990, p. 41).
Earlier versions of portions of this article were presented to the

10th International Conference on Perception & Action, Edinburgh,
UK; the Moral and Social Action Interdisciplinary Colloquium,
Utrecht, Netherlands; and the American Psychological Society, Atlanta, 2003. The work was supported by Development and Initiative
Grants from Gordon College. The authors thank Reuben Baron,
Marilynn Brewer, Daan Brugman, Kaye Cook, Harris Cooper, Alan
Costall, James Good, James Martin, Aaron McLallen, Paul Nail,
Darren Newtson, Daniel Norton, Piero Paolicchi, Christopher Peterson, Suzanne Phillips, Elissa Rodkey, Yaacov Trope, colloquium discussants at the Universities of Portsmouth and Sheffield, and various
reviewers for their comments, advice, and encouragement.
Correspondence should be addressed to Bert H. Hodges, Department of Psychology, Gordon College, Wenham, MA 01984. E-mail:
bert.hodges@gordon.edu
ASCH, VALUES, AND PRAGMATICS
flicts in ways that acknowledge their interdependence

with others and their joint obligations to values such as
truth.
Before we elaborate our account, we briefly review
Asch's intentions in doing the experiments, his findings, and why they have been understood as they have.1
After presenting our account, we review other accounts
of Asch's studies, comparing them with one another
and with the values-pragmatics account. Next, we consider empirical implications of our account, evaluating
existing evidence, and concluding with the possibility
that participants may be following multiple strategies
for integrating values. Finally, we explore the larger
implications of our account for research and theory on
moral dimensions of human action.
The Dilemma of Asch's Results:
Truth or Consensus?
Asch intended his experimental situation to be a
moral dilemma, one that pitted "truth" against "consensus" (Asch, 1952), or "independence" against "submission" (Asch, 1951). He believed that participants should
and would prefer a physical source of information to a
social source when the physical source was unambiguous (e.g., Allen, 1965; Campbell, 1990). The experiments were undertaken in an attempt to refute the view
that people are "silly sheep," willing to believe anything
others say (e.g., Cialdini & Trost, 1998).2
Despite Asch's desire to undermine the stereotype
of humans as conformists, social psychologists have
increasingly interpreted his results as showing the ability of social constraints (i.e., a unanimous majority) to
overpower physical (i.e., an unambiguous perception)
and moral constraints (i.e., to tell the truth; Friend et
al., 1990). For example, Cialdini and Trost (1998)
noted Asch's "remarkable finding that people with normal vision would ignore their own eyes to agree publicly with an obviously inaccurate group judgment" (p.
168).
'Asch provided four accounts of his studies (Asch, 1951, 1952,

1955, 1956). The most complete and detailed is Asch (1956), which
is the source for claims about empirical findings, in not indicated
otherwise. More general characterizations of the studies or of Asch's
views are based on all of the accounts, if not specified.
2Asch's view that perceptual information about a physical relationship should take priority over social information about that relationship seems to reflect the Enlightenment prejudice that favors
the individual over the group, and personal experience over tradition, custom, and authority. He thought Sherif's (1935) earlier
studies on norm formation had been used to make unwarranted
claims about the tendency of individual perceivers to depend on
one another to determine the nature of reality. Ceraso, Gruber, and
Rock (1990) reported that "early returns" from Asch's studies that
showed that people who "stick to their guns" were seen as "electrifying" by his colleagues.
Table 1. Percentage of Participants Assenting to Majority

on Critical Trials in Asch (1951, 1956)
Number of
Assents
1951 Study (n = 50)
1956 Report (n = 123)
26
8
10
12
6
8
2
4
10
6
6
2
0
24
7
8
14
5
6
6
3
11
5
5
3
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Note. 1956 results are based on three studies, including data from
1951 study.
The evidence available in Asch's reports does not

justify such statements; in fact, a stronger case can be
made for the reverse. Table 1 provides the distribution
of times (0-12) participants agreed with the majority's
incorrect answer in Asch's (1951, 1956) basic paradigm.3 Asch noted two important aspects of his results,
ones rarely highlighted. First, "the majority elicited
widely different reactions is one significant aspect of
these findings" (1956, p. 11). Second, the modal response was to dissent on every critical trial, which
Asch notes is "at the truth value ... the opposite extreme from the majority position" (1956, p. 11). The
median number of agreements was 3.0 (Asch, 1951,
1956). Furthermore, Asch pointedly states in his reports that the clarity of perceptual information was the
most compelling force at work in the situation. If vision had not been compelling, then participants would
not have felt the discomfort most of them clearly felt.
Furthermore, Asch's (1956) interview data "suggest
that actual change in perception of the stimulus is extremely rare ... In contrast, many persons said they had
agreed with the group but were certain at the time that
the group was wrong [italics added]" (Allen, 1965, p.
143).
This understanding of the experiment is further
strengthened by Asch's (1951) finding that if a single
other person dissents from the majority, participants
30ur use of the term agreed here (and throughout the article) is a
simplification that follows a confusion created by Asch's (1956) procedures and analysis. On 6 of the 12 critical trials, Asch had the majority give an "extreme" wrong answer. On about 20% of these trials
participants neither gave the correct answer nor agreed with the answer of the majority; instead, they gave a "compromise" answer
(Asch, 1956). Asch (1956) counted these compromises as errors. We
refer to what he calls errors as "agreements" or "assents." It could be
argued that compromise answers provide further evidence for our account because it focuses on participants' being true both to their own
views and those of others.
3
HODGES AND GEYER
hardly ever agree with the majority (about 5% of agreeing answers). If we accept Gilbert's (1991) claim that it
is cognitively more difficult to reject the claims of others than to accept them, then the frequency of dissent in
Asch's studies is even more impressive. Thus, instead
of appearing in chapters on conformity found in virtually every social psychology textbook, Asch's studies
might better appear in a chapter that never appears, one
entitled truth. Asch (1990) himself lamented the failure of social psychologists to appreciate "the love of
truth as a psychological reality, and the power it can
command" (p. 55).
Although we have emphasized truth-telling dissent,
Asch's studies showed the effects of social influence.
There is evidence that Asch was puzzled and dismayed
by these "errors" (Gleitman, Rozin, & Sabini, 1997).
He (Asch, 1951) went on to discuss two groups of participants, independent and yielding, the 26% who
never agreed with the majority and the 28% who
agreed more than half of the time. Most commentators
since Asch (1951) have restricted their focus to the
agreeing responses (Friend et al., 1990). We want to
draw attention to the other half of the participants not
highlighted by Asch or later researchers. Ironically,
they might be considered the typical participants, those
who (on average) dissent from the group nine times
(75%) and agree three times (25%). Why would someone do this?
Behind this question lies a deeper one, a normative
one that is at the heart of this article. Was Asch right to
assume that an individual's moral obligation in the situation is to "call it as he sees it" without consideration of
what others say? Do the occasional agreements of participants with erroneous others represent an epistemic
or ethical failure? Despite the number and diversity of
the studies that have followed up Asch's seminal studies, none that we know of have questioned Asch's assumptions about the epistemic and moral obligations of
his participants.4 The one possible exception is Donald
4Asch's studies have generated a large literature that has taken

many perspectives and examined many factors related to his findings.
Numerous studies have examined the stability and robustness of the
phenomenon, particularly whether it is culturally and temporally dependent (e.g., R. Bond & Smith, 1996; Chandra, 1973; Doms & Van
Avermaet, 1981; Frager, 1970; Furnham, 1984; Lalancette & Standing, 1990; Lamb & Alsikafi, 1980; Larsen, 1990; Neto, 1995; Nicholson, Cole, & Rocklin, 1985; Perrin & Spencer, 1981; Smith & Bond,
1999; Whittaker & Meade, 1967). There has been a lively discussion
of minority and majority influence and the relation between them in
intragroup interactions (e.g., R. Martin, 1995; Moscovici, 1980,
1985a; Mugny, 1985; Wood, 1999; Wood, Lundgren, Ouellette,
Busceme, & Blackstone, 1994). The size and gender composition of
groups has been considered (e.g., R. Bond & Smith, 1996; Eagly &
Carli, 1981; Latand & Wolf, 1981; Tanford & Penrod, 1984), as have
developmental issues (e.g., Allen & Newtson, 1972; Walker &
Andrade, 1996). Nail (1986), Nail, MacDonald, and Levy (2000), and
Campbell (1961, 1990), whom Asch (1990) acknowledged as the only American psychologist who
"grasped" the "moral dimension" (p. 53) of his work.
We will present Campbell's views in the context of presenting our own alternative account of Asch's studies.
A Values-Pragmatics Account:
Negotiating Complex Demands
Our account begins by considering the multiple
values that obligate participants in the Asch situation,
then turns to the pragmatic context in which participants have to speak (i.e., address the question asked
by the experimenter). We then examine theory and research on cross-cultural issues and mixed-motive negotiations that provide support for the values-pragmatics analysis.
Values
Values, "the vectors that we designate with the
terms right and wrong" (Asch, 1952, p. 357) provided
the implicit framework for Asch's own analysis of the
situation he created. The situation confronted participants with competing "forces" (Asch, 1956). Speaking
the truth of what one saw was good, but consensus was
"a malignant sociological process" that "spreads error
and confusion" (Asch, 1952, p. 495-496).5
Although succeeding generations of social psychologists have not emphasized the moral character of the
Asch situation or the "power of truth" in it, they have
shared Asch's normative stance in evaluating the behavior of participants. They have assumed a "zero-tolerance
norm" (Krueger & Funder, 2004): Agreement on even a
Willis (1965), among others, have considered how independence,

conformity, anticonformity, and other possible responses could be integrated into a common theory. A wide array of situational variables
have been considered for their relevance to Asch-type studies, including public and private responding (e.g., Dittes & Kelley, 1956), simulated rather than real groups (e.g., Crutchfield, 1955), social support
for minority perspectives (e.g., Allen, 1975; Morris & Miller, 1975),
in-group-out-group differentiation and related variables (e.g., Linde
& Patterson, 1964; Sakurai, 1975; Turner, 1991), and individualism-collectivism (e.g., R. Bond & Smith, 1996; Lau, 1992). Theoretically, the studies have been discussed from many perspectives, including social comparison (Festinger & Thibaut, 1951), social
referencing (Feinman, 1992), learning (Campbell, 1961; Lott & Lott,
1961), self-monitoring (Kurosawa, 1993; Snyder & Monson, 1975),
attention (Tesser, Campbell, & Mickler, 1983), and individual differences in personality and background (e.g., Barron, 1962; Bowler &
Worley, 1994; Crutchfield, 1955; Gould, 1969; Loevinger, 1993;
Moeller & Applezweig, 1957; Wilson, 1960).
5Asch described consensus in more positive terms elsewhere
(Friend et al., 1990), but this antisocial understanding is the one,
we think, that shaped his thinking in designing the truth-telling
experiments.
4
single critical trial is sufficient to count the individual as

conforming (Friend et al., 1990). This strong criterion is
seen as justified because the situation is a simple one; either one states the obvious truth or one denies it. Any
agreement at all is taken to indicate epistemic confusion,
ethical weakness, or both.
Campbell (1990) challenged such a reading of the
Asch situation as simplistic. Noting the enormous dependence humans must have on one another if they are
to know about the world, he claimed that trust is a valid
ecological assumption, although "locally unjustified"
in the Asch situation. In fact, he suggested that, from an
evolutionary perspective, consensus trumps truth because it makes collective action possible. Consensus is
not the evil that Asch portrayed; it is a necessary good.
Campbell went so far as to suggest that Asch's participants should believe that the group is likely correct and
they themselves wrong. Nonetheless, they should report their perception rather than their belief because
others in the group are dependent on independent observations by everyone to achieve the most
epistemologically accurate consensus.
We think Campbell (1990) is right to see the Asch
dilemma in terms of multiple, interrelated goods
rather than an opposition of good and evil forces, but
his moral analysis ends with the same epistemic conclusion as Asch: Participants should "call it as they
see it" regardless of what others have said. Asch's
and Campbell's concern for the moral dimension of
the situation is right, but we question their conclusion. The situation is more complex and subtle than
has been appreciated, even in their thoughtful analyses. To see this more clearly, we consider the relation
of values and the complexity of conversational contexts in which those values are embodied.
Hodges and Baron (1992) argued that perception
and action are guided by multiple values (e.g., clarity,
coherence, comprehensiveness, complexity) that are
inherently in tension with each other (J. E. Martin,
Kleindorfer, & Brashers, 1987). However, they are not
polar opposites as some have proposed (e.g., Schwartz,
1994), nor are they hierarchically ordered as others
have assumed (e.g., Rokeach, 1973). Instead, Hodges
and Baron proposed that values are heterarchically related. A heterarchy is an organization of equally important components of a system that mutually constrain one another, so that over time and situation they
vary in which ones take the lead. For example, in driving a vehicle, accuracy (e.g., how close can I come to
another car?) does not always take priority over safety
(e.g., leaving adequate space between vehicles), or
vice versa. Sometimes we "cut it close;" other times,
we "err on the side of caution." Good driving involves
jointly realizing values such as accuracy, safety, efficiency, and kindness, which requires shifting priorities
over time and tasks.
Applied to the Asch dilemma, this understanding of

values suggests that no rule-following procedure (e.g.,
when in doubt, trust yourself and ignore others) will be
adequate to the task. Neither will some attempt to focus
on a single value (e.g., truth) do justice to the complexity of the situation. Rather, the situation places multiple
demands on participants: They include truth (i.e., expressing one's own view accurately), trust (i.e., taking
seriously the value of others' claims), and social solidarity (i.e., a commitment to integrate the views of self
and others without deprecating either). In addition to
these epistemic values, there are multiple moral claims
as well: These include the need for participants to care
for the integrity and well-being of other participants,
the experimenter, themselves, and the worth of scientific research. If values are equally important, but
heterarchically related, which value or values should
take the lead in an Asch-type situation? By analyzing
the Asch experiment from the perspective of conversational pragmatics, we will examine how participants
might juggle the multiple values in a way that works to
balance them all temporally and socially.
Pragmatics
Asch's (1951) experimental situation was a conversation of a special sort: Participants listened to others-an experimenter with a seemingly simple request,
and other participants who frequently said very strange
things-and then had to speak in a highly constrained
way in answer to them.
Pragmatics, which is grounded in values according
to Grice (1991), is the study of the contextual appropriateness of what is spoken and understood (Clark, 1985;
Givon, 1989). Asch (1956) claimed that by agreeing to
be in the experiment, participants obligate themselves
to speak truthfully to the experimenter. Truth is a value
that participants must acknowledge (Brown &
Levinson, 1987; Grice, 1975), but Asch (1956) overlooked the fact that the participant must in the same utterance also say what is appropriate for other participants. What is best to say in a tense or strange situation,
one marked by sharp disagreement or incredulity, is
not so simple as saying what one would say in a less
contentious and more familiar situation. Given this
state of affairs, it is not at all clear that the right thing to
do is to repeat on each trial what one would have said
without regard to what others are saying. Consistent
contradiction of this sort might suggest the speaker is
merely disagreeable, arrogant, or ignorant.
Rather than understand the participant's dilemma
as being tempted to stray from the truth (Asch's analysis), we could think of it in the following way: How
can participants speak the truth about their situation
in a way that honors their personal integrity (i.e., their
own perception) and that is sensitive to and respectful
5
HODGES AND GEYER
of the experimenter, the other participants, and the

situation in which they all find themselves? Pragmatically, we want (usually) to be truthful, gracious,
interesting, and many other things when we speak to
others. What is hard, sometimes impossible, is to realize all of these goods at the same time in each individual utterance.
In such a complex ecology people might do just
what average participants in Asch's (1951, 1956)
study actually did. They might mostly give their own
view (a simple perceptual conviction), but occasionally go along with the majority just to let them know
that they had paid attention to them. It might serve as
a kind of signal to the majority that, whereas they disagreed with them, they did not think them crazy and
irrelevant to their own judgment and action. Similarly, participants would not want to be viewed by
majority members as people who were continually ignoring or contradicting their conversational partners,
because that would probably preclude productive interaction between them.
If this analysis is correct, then the pragmatic concern of participants is not just to avoid ridicule or to
protect their self-image; rather, it is a way to keep
themselves "in the conversation" with other group
members and vice versa. Dissent, if it is to be useful,
must "appeal to a deeper-lying unity; it is intelligible
only if each party can assume that the other is capable
of overcoming a distorted view" (Asch, 1952, p. 131).
Viewed in this way, agreeing with the incorrect majority occasionally might not be an error (as Asch called
it), but a creative strategy to communicate unity.
"Pragmatics should be much concerned precisely with
such mechanisms whereby a speaker can mean more
than, or something quite different from, what he actually says, by inventively exploiting communicative
conventions" (Levinson, 1983, p. 27).
Pragmatic Resources
Thus far we have indicated why participants in an
Asch situation might have good reason to acknowledge the views of others even when they disagree
with them. What resources for pragmatic inventiveness are available to participants to communicate
such an acknowledgment? One example of such inventiveness is illustrated in an anecdote Asch (1951)
reported. A participant who always dissented "announced" all disagreeing answers in the form of
"Three, sir," but did not do so when everyone gave
the correct answer. It is likely these formalities are an
implied message to his peers that he feels he cannot
help disagreeing with them because he is bound by
his obligation to the experimenter, the authority figure who has brought them all together. Although such
an anecdote is interesting, it is difficult to assess the
frequency of such pragmatic maneuvers among

Asch's (1956) participants. However, we hypothesize
that two other pragmatic resources were used to help
participants balance their multiple obligations, the
temporal and social dimensions of action.
If, as Asch (1956) assumed, participants' primary
obligation is to speak the truth about their situation,
what is that truth? The clearest and most comprehensive reality the participant perceives is a frustrating tension between multiple sources of information, all of
which are crucial to his or her existence. The usual assumption is that this frustration forces the person to
make a tradeoff, one that Asch saw as a simple moral
choice. But Asch's analysis failed to consider the temporal and social dimensions of action: What cannot be
done in any single act, alone, can be accomplished over
time, in concert with others.
Because there are 12 critical trials, participants can
attempt to balance their differing obligations by varying their choices across trials. Rather than being
trapped by a trade-off, participants can complexify
their behavior to express, albeit awkwardly, the truth of
their situation, its tension and frustration. Asch (1956)
and other commentators (e.g., Cohen, 1958) assumed
consistency is the hallmark of rational and moral behavior, but, perhaps, inconsistency is a truer index of
the situation.6
Note that the values-pragmatics hypothesis does
not assume that individuals would vary their answers
over time as part of some conscious communicative
strategy. Patterns of discourse and the pragmatic assumptions that underwrite them may vary with little or
no conscious recognition by their users (Douglas &
Sutton, 2003; Gee, 1999; Newtson and Czerlinsky,
1974). Pragmatic constraints might affect agree-disagree choices in an Asch situation in much the same
way that Thelen, Schbner, Scheier, and Smith (2001)
showed that choices are made in Piagetian (A-not-B
choice) tasks. Although children are not conscious of
prior arm movements, Thelen et al. claimed these ear60ne might ask whether our signaling hypothesis is undermined by the observation that there are six trials on which the majority gives the correct answer. Could not participants' agreeing
with the majority on these trials signal their social solidarity with
them without their agreeing on any critical trials? Although this is
possible, we suspect not. First, Asch's (1951) anecdotal observation, cited earlier, indicates that some participants treated critical
and noncritical trials differently. Second, the six trials on which the
others agree with the participant's judgment are what keep the participant believing that the majority might be sane enough to be
worth communicating with. This leaves participants with the problem of how to communicate their own reasonableness (as well as
perceptual conviction). Signaling requires giving something up
from the participant's point of view. Third, even if one includes the
noncritical trials, the median participant dissents nine times and
agrees nine times, an equal balancing of his or her obligations to
the group and to his or her own perception.
6
lier actions demonstrably constrain current action

choices, functioning as a continuous, evolving dynamical system.
The social dimension of Asch's experiment is embodied in variability across individuals in their
weighting of their various epistemic and ethical obligations. Rather than treating such individual differences as "noise" or deviations from a singular ideal
(i.e., unvarying dissent), it might be better to see them
in terms of the group as a whole. From the perspectives of evolutionary theory and practical ethics one
might argue that a group does best when there is variability in response to contradictory information. For
example, if everyone asserted his or her perceptual
views without regard to others, the epistemic result
would be subjectivism (Midgley, 1993). Conversely,
if everyone acceded, then epistemologically the group
would be at the mercy of whoever got to speak first.
In neither case would a group have an epistemic advantage over individuals.
Next, we consider evidence from cross-cultural
studies and mixed-motive negotiations that support
and elaborate the account we have offered.
Cross-Cultural Truths: A More

Comprehensive View
We have claimed that the Asch-situation is best understood in terms of multiple values that must be balanced appropriately if participants want their words
and actions to be true. If we move beyond American
and European assumptions about truth and disagreement, we are confronted by cultures, such as the Chinese, that challenge Western ways of evaluation
(Nisbett, 2003). Americans and Europeans feel obligated to express their personal views, particularly in
verbal exchanges, and they prize the accuracy, clarity,
and directness with which this is done. By contrast
Chinese focus on a different kind of truth: Individuals
are to be true to their place in a set of relations. The integrity of the group generally matters more than the
tightness of the fit between individual utterances and
their referents. Thus, to Westerners, Chinese may
sometimes seem "loose" in what they say, but Chinese
consider it as a necessary form of tolerance to be true to
the relationship. As M. H. Bond (1990, p. 59) has put
it: "In a high-context culture such protection of relationships is often construed to be a higher good than a
slavish adherence to what is, after all, only one person's limited perspective on reality." Direct disagreement that might threaten social relations is avoided by
the Chinese; instead, justice requires fulfilling the obligations of one's social position (Su et al., 1999). The
tension of the Asch situation, then, would be between
truth-telling and justice.
A values-pragmatics approach suggests that neither

culture has "the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
It acknowledges the validity of both American and
Chinese views, but yields neither to the preference hierarchy of the Chinese nor to its inversion by Americans. Sometimes in American settings priority is given
to social solidarity (e.g., "How do I look?" is not likely
to get a blunt answer by Americans), and sometimes
personal assertion will occur in Chinese settings (e.g.,
a son confronting his father when he believes the family as a whole would be harmed). Research even suggests that the typical American and Chinese ways of
conversing are reversed in certain contexts. There is
evidence that Americans are more willing than Chinese (Bloom, 1984) and Germans (Yin, 2002) to accept
hypothetical scenarios as a basis for conversation.
Bloom's work indicates that Chinese tend to speak
more carefully and truthfully about their own experience than Americans, who more readily accept the theoretical framework of their interlocutor, speaking hypothetically rather than on the basis of their own
experience. Yin claimed that Germans view Americans
as not telling the truth when they make hypothetical
claims in public settings. He noted, however, that in intimate settings Germans shift their focus from
truth-telling to engaging in positive, relationship-maintaining talk. These studies suggest that conversations entail honoring multiple values, all of which
are accessible across cultures'and situations, although
which value is highlighted may vary (e.g., Westerners
themselves speak of being true to another person, particularly a spouse). The findings appear to be consonant with our claim that values are mutually dependent
and heterarchically related. Across cultures and across
situations within a culture there is an attempt to maintain the integrity of both social relationships and linguistic utterances.
Cross-cultural comparisons of conversational
pragmatics indicate that the Asch dilemma is far from a
straightforward moral choice: Social solidarity and
truth are not opposing demands, but closely related
ones. American psychologists' cultural prejudices
have made it difficult for us to see agreement with others in an Asch-type situation as "a willing change of
the individual to accommodate the group" (Kim &
Markus, 1999, p. 786), but publicly agreeing, while
privately disagreeing, with others may be seen as exemplifying tact and sensitivity rather than submission
and cowardice (R. Bond & Smith, 1996). Tact and situational sensitivity may be as crucial to integrity and
justice as accuracy and forthrightness.
If telling the truth is complicated and entails attending to social relationships, is it possible for minority
participants to communicate the truth to the majority in
the way our account proposes? Studies of mixed-motive negotiations suggest it is.
7
HODGES AND GEYER
Interdependence and Negotiation: A

More Cooperative View
We have proposed that most participants in Asch
situations offer a mix of dissenting and agreeing answers. What sense can their peers make of such actions? Interdependence theory (Kelly & Thibaut, 1978;
Rusbult & Van Lange, 1996; Van Lange & DeDreu,
2001), which studies mixed-motive exchanges, offers
some insight, although such models appear to have
been applied to the Asch situation infrequently. Each
critical trial in the Asch situation can be seen as presenting a choice between competing (i.e., disagreeing)
and cooperating (i.e., agreeing) with the majority.
Nemeth (1985) noted that minority influence researchers have argued that a minority is most likely to
be influential when it is consistent and persistent, but
bargaining theorists have claimed that offers of compromise or other cooperative gestures are more often
persuasive. She concluded, however, that minorities
are most effective when they reveal "the ability to
maintain a position while at the same time offering
some acknowledgment of the positions of others" (p.
90). Consistent disagreement with others is likely to
generate anger and reactance, undermining communication. Some compromise, particularly if it comes later
in the discussion, seems to be more influential.
Pruitt and Rubins (1986) proposed four basic strategies that can be followed in mixed-motive negotiations: contending, yielding, problem solving, and inaction. What strategy do participants in an Asch situation
adopt? Asch thought contending was called for, and
most psychologists have tried to explain yielding, but
the available evidence (i.e., about 70% of participants
make some combination of competitive and cooperative choices) indicates that problem solving may be the
dominant strategy. If participants use such a strategy, it
suggests they intend to maximize joint outcomes rather
than treating the situation as irremediably competitive.
Interdependence and bargaining theories of
mixed-motive negotiations support a values-pragmatics account in two ways. First, they assume cooperation is the relevant good to be achieved rather than independence because many tasks cannot be done
without help from others. Second, they support the
view that a principled compromise of commitment to
one' s own (minority) view and an acknowledgment of
the (majority) view of others is the strategy that will
most likely allow a minority truth-teller to influence an
errant majority.
Summary: The Ironies of Asch

The Asch situation is not a simple one involving a
straightforward obligation to a single value; rather,
there are multiple values and multiple relations that are
in tension with one another. Negotiation of this frustrating situation requires a heterarchical juggling (i.e.,
balancing) of values to maintain the integrity of the
system as a whole. We hypothesized that participants
implicitly treat the experiments as a conversation in
which individual participants tacitly vary their answers
over time as a pragmatic expression of the truth of their
situation, and as a signal of their acknowledgment of
disagreement and their openness to further conversation. Further, we posited that different people might
vary in their sensitivity to various values, such that
their joint actions would yield a more accurate and
adaptive representation of the situation as a whole than
is possible for any individual's actions.
Asch's experiments are marked by multiple ironies.
One, already noted, is the "widespread, even fantastic
misconception, that Asch was attempting to demonstrate the prevalence of conformity" (Friend et al.,
1990, p. 30). A second is Campbell's (1990) observation that psychologists too readily see themselves as
seekers and purveyors of truth, although too readily describing those they study as conformists. A third irony
is the fact that the average participants in Asch's studies have been overlooked. If people were the conformists that social psychologists take them to be, fearful of
the scorn or ostracism of the majority, or the moral
cowards that Asch implies they are, why would the typical participant dissent 75% of the time? A final irony
is that Asch was able to see that his own use of false information (i.e., his confederates' answers) was part of a
larger quest for truth, but was apparently unable to see
that his participants might be doing something quite
similar (Hodges, 2004). Neither he nor later commentators explored the possibility that erroneous answers
participants occasionally give may be locally incorrect
to help them communicate a larger truth.7
Other Theoretical Approaches:

Similarities and Dissents
The values-pragmatics hypothesis challenges normative assumptions that have framed many psychologists' understanding of the Asch paradigm. To evaluate
the worth of this challenge two general issues need to
be addressed. First, how does the hypothesis compare
with other proposed explanations? Second, is it empirically productive and defensible? In this section we
briefly review (because no recent review is available)
and compare alternative approaches to Asch's studies.
70ur rejoinder is not meant to diminish Asch's concern that people sometimes do not speak the truth, not because of some moral sophistication that places truth in the context of other values, but because they are lazy or lack courage.
8
In the following section we consider the empirical

worth of our account.
Alternative Approaches to Asch

The most commonly used framework for discussing
Asch-type studies has been in terms of informational
and normative pressures brought to bear on individuals
by groups (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). Despite the popularity of this framework, its adequacy is not assured.
Asch (1956), as well as Allen (1965), Campbell (1961,
1990), Cialdini and Trost (1998), Levine (1999), and
Leyens and Corneille (1999), stressed the role of informational factors because no obvious normative factors
(i.e., a clear dependence of the participant on the majority) exist in the basic Asch dilemma. However, others (e.g., R. Bond & Smith, 1996; Van Avermaet, 2001)
have claimed normative factors are paramount. Their
conclusion rests primarily on results showing less
agreement in private than public responses, which they
interpret as evidence of public pretense to avoid "ostracism or ridicule" (R. Bond & Smith, 1996, p. 13). The
problem for normative accounts, though, is that it is
difficult to see how participants avoided ridicule by
dissenting most or all of the time (which about 65%
did).
Other results do not seem readily accounted for by
either informational or normative influences. For example, Asch (1955) found that if one member of the
group gave an answer that was different from the rest
of the group but also incorrect, participants' agreement
with the group was reduced to about 22% if the dissenter's error was more moderate than the group's, and
to about 9% if the dissenter's error was more extreme.
Both informational and normative influence accounts
would assume that a more extreme view added to the
group would increase pressure on the participant to
move toward the group's view. However, a group with
an extreme member reduced participants' agreement
rather than increased it, and even more surprising, the
decrease exceeded the decrease generated by a more
moderate member.
An attributional analysis of the Asch situation offered by Ross, Bierbrauer, and Hoffman (1976) proposed that participants face the problem of reconciling
their answers to two questions: To what might I attribute the majority's strange behavior? If I dissent from
them, to what will they attribute my behavior? The disagreement of the group challenges the individual's
competence and sanity, but the individual's dissenting
from the majority will seem equally challenging and
strange. According to Ross et al., most people will be
"loath to offer" such a challenge, but because the task
is so simple and compelling, participants must choose,
acknowledging either weakness or incompetence. In
short, there is no winning move to be made. They also
suggest dilemmas as intense as Asch's are mostly confined to the laboratory.

Sabini and his colleagues (Sabini, Cosmas,
Siepmann, & Stein, 2000; Sabini, Garvey, & Hall,
2001; Sabini, Siepmann, & Stein, 2001b) have proposed that fear of embarrassment accounts for behavior in the Asch situation. People, they suggest, are reluctant to tell the truth because of an awkward
dilemma: If I tell the truth and I am right I will embarrass the group, and if I am wrong I will embarrass myself. To make matters worse, either outcome is embarrassing, because it is embarrassing to embarrass others.
Thus, presumably participants go along with the group
to avoid such embarrassment. The difficulty for this account is that most participants most of the time dissent.
According to self-presentation theory (e.g.,

Baumeister, 1982), it is not the fear of negative evaluation per se that motivates agreement with a majority,
but a desire to protect a particular self-image.
Baumeister (1982) argued that the participant is motivated to accede to the "general norms for appropriate
behavior for laboratory subjects ... to give one's own
best answer, not to express a wrong one because of
fear of embarrassment" (p. 9). Here, fear of embarrassment is hypothesized to work against agreeing
and in favor of truth-telling, unlike the Sabini et al.
(2000; Sabini et al., 2001; Sabini et al., 2001b) formulation. How does a concern for one's self-image
then lead to the observed amount of agreement? It is
because the majority establishes a more particular, local norm that competes with the general norm.
Baumeister (1982) argued that when the majority is
the audience of the participant's answers, participants
would be motivated to agree with the majority. There
is an exception, however. If the majority uses threats
or other heavy-handed measures, then participants are
likely to dissent, because agreement under these conditions would present a weak, cowardly self. It is intriguing that the self-presentation formulation assumes that increasing normative pressure may reduce
participants' tendency to agree with the majority, because the usual understanding of normative influence
implies the reverse.
Social identity (or self-categorization) theory (e.g.,
Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, Hogg, & Turner, 1990;
Turner, 1982) is similar to self-presentation theory, but
focuses more on self-definition rather than the presentation of an already well-defined self-image. Abrams
et al. argued that consensus is central to one's understanding of both physical and social reality so that disagreement with others with whom one expects to agree
will generate uncertainty about one's identity. Thus,
the effect of an Asch situation should be greatest when
participants consider themselves and their peers as
members of a common group. Such an in-group provides information about the norms by which the person
9
HODGES AND GEYER
evaluates his or her own identity. From this perspective, normative pressure from the group and direct informational influence about the task are less important
than is the information the group provides about the
proper norms by which to evaluate oneself. The social
influence of the group should be greatest when the participant's social identity is at stake; thus, for example, a
participant in an Asch situation is more likely to agree
more with a group of friends than with a group of
strangers.
Comparison and Evaluation

of Approaches
Each of these theories, we think, offers some genuine insight. Each, probably, describes what is true for
some people some of the time in the Asch situation. On
the other hand, they seem incomplete at best, and even
together do not provide a comprehensive account of
the Asch situation. How do they compare with the values-pragmatics account and with one another?
The tendency of most of these accounts has been to
explain why people "conform" so much. The problem
is that people do not agree with incorrect majorities as
much as these theories lead one to believe. If one were
to adopt the zero-tolerance norm that has been applied
to Asch's truth hypothesis, then one might expect
agreement with the majority 12 times (100%) in the
Asch paradigm. However, 95% of Asch's (1956) participants did not do this. They told the truth (i.e., dissented) even in the face of likely embarrassment, of informational uncertainty, and concerns for their identity
or others' impressions.
Informational influence theories recognize, at least
in a backhanded way, the desire of participants to be
true and that this desire might be best realized by participants noticing and caring about others' perspectives
as well as their own. This recognition of the worth of
others to the epistemological task is, however, sometimes described in ways that suggest that it is more
about self-presentation than trust (e.g., Insko, Smith,
Alicke, Wade, & Taylor, 1985).
Not only do theories need to explain the predominance of truth-telling dissent, they also need to explain
the wide variability of responses. Only accounts stressing the importance of informational influence (e.g., attribution) and self-presentation theory seem capable of
accounting for the observed diversity. Both types of
accounts posit two forces (e.g., self and other and
general social norms and situation-specific norms) that
are in tension. If these forces are weighted differently
they could generate a diverse array of agreements and
dissents.
However, neither informational influence theory
nor self-presentation theory considers the concern the
participant might have for others and for how to com-
municate across their differences in a way that would

be good for all involved. Like normative and self-presentational theories, the values-pragmatics hypothesis
suggests participants will be concerned with how they
will be perceived by their peers, but their motivation is
not just a matter of self-presentation. Rather, it is a matter of determining how to communicate dissent and a
desire to be agreeable so that participants and their
peers can avoid the ultimate embarrassment-not having worked together to discern truths that were important for sustaining all of them.
The attribution approach is similar to our account in
drawing attention to the reciprocal nature of the communicative dilemma, the possibility of minority, as
well as majority, influence (Moscovici, 1980, 1985a).
The attribution account suggests the dilemma is more
intractable than our account does, although Ross et
al.'s (1976) research did find conditions under which
the difficulty could be ameliorated. Furthermore, the
values-pragmatics analysis suggests the Asch dilemma is not confined to the laboratory, as Ross et al.
indicated, but occurs whenever one is called on to
speak the truth in a tense, awkward, or hostile situation.
It is the dilemma, for instance, of the would-be whistleblower (Bovens, 1998), of a religious person who
works with unsympathetic colleagues (MacDonald,
Nail, & Levy, 2004), or of the Chinese delegate to the
United Nations whose nation was opposed to attacking
Iraq, but considered what France and other countries
would do in deciding whether to vote "no" to the war
resolution sponsored by the United States.
None of the alternative theories draws attention to
the participant's relationship with the experimenter in
the way the values-pragmatics hypothesis does. Furthermore, most of the theories do not indicate the potential for an evaluative frame of reference beyond the
immediate experimental context, although self-presentation theory suggests there are larger reference groups
for social norms. Self-presentation theory's focus on
multiple norms seems similar to the focus on multiple
values in our hypothesis, but the values-pragmatics
hypothesis focuses on the values to be realized rather
than on the person's self-image. According to the values-pragmatics hypothesis, values are intrinsic goods
toward which behavior is directed, rather than instrumental means by which a person can maintain an image of normalcy or goodness or both. This difference in
how norms and values are viewed points to a larger set
of differences between the values-pragmatics approach and alternative theories.
Alternative accounts rely on self-interest as the motivation for minority participants' actions. Motivational questions are vexed and controversial (e.g.,
Batson, 1995; Caporael, Dawes, Orbell, & van de
Kragt, 1989; Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, &
Neuberg, 1997; Sober & Wilson, 1998), but we suspect
10
that motivation includes "other-regarding preferences"

and "moral preferences," not just self-regarding ones
(Bowles, 2001). The values-pragmatics account suggests that values are not just the identities, information,
and rewards dispensed by the group, but the resources
out of which the group itself must live, making it possible for individual members to challenge the group as
well as conform to it.
The values-pragmatics hypothesis proposes that it
is not normative or informational influence per se that
creates agreement in the Asch situation. Rather it is a
values-realizing concern for resolving discrepancies
between informational concerns (what is true?) and
normative concerns (what ought to be done for the
good of others and myself?; Jackson & Saltzstein,
1958). The participant works to resolve this tension in
some movement from is toward ought. On this view the
various concerns identified by the alternative theories
are embedded in a context of multiple relationships
embedded in a larger context of values. These values
ground and guide the relationships, providing a means
by which participants in these relationships can evaluate their actions.
In conclusion, existing theories of the Asch situation-despite their strengths and significant contributions-do not adequately explain some of the basic
findings of the studies. Theories that integrate normative and informational concerns, such as social identity
theory and attribution, are a move in the right direction
but seem to focus their explanatory power on the agreement between minority and majority rather than the
disagreement that occurs more often. Attribution theory seems to articulate the tension of the situation most
aptly, but self-presentation theory seems to provide a
better way of understanding the diversity of responses.
All of the theories assume that the primary motivation
of the minority participant is self-concern. The values-pragmatics account provides a larger, richer social
and moral context in which to appreciate the dilemma
Asch posed and the care and complexity with which
participants engaged it.
Some Empirical Implications

In this section we briefly indicate a sample of more
specific hypotheses that are generated by the values-pragmatics account. Where there is existing research, we briefly note it; where research is lacking, we
hope our review provokes new studies.
1. The values-pragmatics account predicts that

participants in Asch-type situations will be more
likely to agree with strangers than with friends. Because friends have well-established levels of trust and
honesty, pragmatic signals of solidarity are less
needed. Friends can be blunt in a way strangers cannot (Heider, 1958). By contrast, conformity theories
(e.g., Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Graham, 1962) predict
the reverse: They assume increased identification and
cohesion produce greater normative and informational pressures.
Few studies have used friends as participants in
Asch-type experiments, but the evidence appears to favor the values-pragmatics prediction. McKelvey and
Kerr (1988) did two experiments, both of which found
lower mean agreement rates among friends (about .08)
than among strangers (about .25), although the judgments required in their studies may not have been as
clear as Asch's (N. H. Kerr, personal communication,
January 11, 2003).
2. A related hypothesis is that the relative importance of truth-telling and social solidarity will vary
across cultural contexts, as well as across situations
within a culture (public vs. intimate conversations;
Yin, 2002). Based on the pragmatic considerations
contrasting Chinese and American orderings of
truth-in-relationship and truth-in-reference, discussed
earlier, we predict that dissent will be more readily expressed in an American family than in a Chinese one,
especially in public settings, but there might be less
difference or even a reversal in intimate settings that invite expressions of social support.
The most relevant studies were done in Japan.
Whether one views Japan as similar to China (Smith &
Bond, 1999; Triandis, 1995) or more Westernized
(Frager, 1970; Miller & Kanazawa, 2000) would, of
course, lead to differing predictions. Limited evidence
suggests both might be true: One study yielded results
similar to McKelvey and Kerr's (1988) American results; the other found the reverse. Although their manipulation of the friendship variable was weak, Williams and Sogon (1984) found more agreement with
incorrect majorities in intact groups than unacquainted
groups. By contrast, Matsuda (1985) found the least
amount of agreement in uchi (friend) groups (.08) and
the most in soto (stranger) groups (.29) in the conditions most comparable to Asch's situation. In short, the
relationship of friendship to truth-telling and agreement across cultures is complex, but supportive of the
values-pragmatics analysis.
3. Newtson and Czerlinsky (1974) noted the appropriateness of taking the audience being addressed
into account when communicating. In the Asch situation the two most obvious audiences addressed are
the experimenter and the other participants. It follows
from the values-pragmatics account that agreement
with the majority answers will be greatest when the
majority is addressed, least when the experimenter
alone is addressed, and intermediate when both are
addressed together (as in the standard version of the
Asch paradigm).
11
HODGES AND GEYER
Available evidence supports this prediction, but

there are reasons for caution. Researchers have found
more dissent when participants write down their answers rather than announcing them (Asch, 1956; Balance, 1968; and Abrams et al., 1990, but only when
members were from an in-group). The one study that
directly tested the hypothesis (Schulman, 1967) found
the predicted pattern, but only for participants who
thought the experimenter expected truth-telling.8 Although Schulman found that dissent was expressed
least often when speaking directly to disagreeing
strangers, a majority of participants' answers were still
dissenting.
The evidence reviewed presents difficulties for pure
informational accounts and for pure normative accounts, but can be accommodated by the values-pragmatics hypothesis as well as self-presentation
and attribution accounts. However, in their meta-analysis of Asch-type studies R. Bond and Smith (1996) reported no statistically reliable main effect for whether
participants' answers were known to the majority or
not. Our primary reason for hesitancy in accepting
their conclusion is that the meta-analysis was based on
only 14 experimental groups, 6 of which appeared in
the four studies reviewed previously. The other 8 occurred in a single study by Gerard, Wilhelmy, and
Conolley (1968) that used children as participants and
included several other methodological features that
make it noncomparable. Thus, the safest conclusion is
that existing addressee effects in Asch-type experiments are suggestive, but in need of renewed attention.
4. The social referencing that takes place in
Asch-type situations is multiple and complex. Bakhtin
(1979/1986) argued that our utterances are addressed
not just to specific and physically present others (e.g.,
the experimenter and majority peers), but also to what
he called a "superaddressee" (a larger reference group
that judges our utterances, such as "the court of history," the community of scientists, "the people" or
"God"). Participants in Asch dilemmas with
superaddressees (by choice or by instruction) will feel
less bound by obligations internal to the experimental
situation. For example, participants whose ordinary
tendencies in an Asch situation are toward independence, if oriented toward the superaddressee "science,"
would feel constrained to weigh the views of others
more heavily than usual and to try to express themselves in ways that would resonate with their colleagues. By contrast, those who tend toward following
8Allen (1965, p. 169) observed that many researchers may not
have expected truth-telling but may have communicated explicitly or
implicitly an expectation for participants to agree with their peers.
Schulman (1967) discovered that many of his female participants believed that the experimenter expected them to agree with the majority even if it was incorrect.
majority views would feel a greater obligation to make

independent observations that could be integrated into
a consensus.
Allen and Wilder (1977) discussed Merton's (1968)
contention that a person who remains independent in
an Asch situation does so by attending to a "set of values, standards, and practices of some other time and
place" (p. 417). They described a participant in a study
by Israel (1963) who dissented from her peers' answers
by imagining how her parents and best friends would
have answered. Allen and Wilder's own studies found
that knowing of another person who dissented in a similar situation reduced agreement with incorrect peers
as much as having another dissenter within one's own
group.
5. A number of commentators on Asch's studies
(e.g., Baron, Vandello, & Brunsman, 1996; Milgram,
1964) have assumed that if people felt more accountable they would be more independent of others. However, based on a values-pragmatics analysis, we predict that participants in Asch-type dilemmas will
dissent less and agree more when accountability is increased. This follows from the heterarchical relation
among values. The greater the epistemic and moral
weight of the judgment being made, the more participants will tend to give weight to consensus in their attempts to honor truth and justice. Similarly, the more
crucial social solidarity is (i.e., the more a community
depends on an individual member's judgment), the
more the demands of accuracy and truthfulness will
weigh on that person.
Schwarz's (1996) discussion of the pragmatics of
experimental discourse reinforces this prediction. He
argued that telling participants to be accurate is likely
to make them be even more sensitive to the entire situation, including the information value contained in
others' views, and the need for communicating effectively with them if one's own views are to be influential. Similarly, Tetlock (2002) proposed that increasing accountability makes people more sensitive to
being epistemically responsible, which entails being
self-critical and attending to all relevant information.
Available evidence tends to favor the values-pragmatics prediction (Baron et al., 1996;
Moscovici & Lage, 1978). In other cases (e.g.,
Milgram, 1961) increased accountability has led to
negligible differences. In general, it is when truth is
most at stake that we expect and seek agreement with
others.
6. The values-pragmatics hypothesis draws attention to an unnoticed question: Do agreements in the
Asch paradigm occur in any particular order? The values-pragmatics hypothesis leads one to expect that the
order of agreements and disagreements will be patterned in ways that signal participants' perception of the
truth and their willingness to work with others to achieve
12
a just and comprehensive account of their situation.

Thus, if assents (i.e., incorrect answers) are to have signal value they will be distributed across trials so that they
function, similar to a verbal "hedge" (Lakoff, 1972).
Likely patterns would be assents appearing at the end of
short strings of dissents, or a longer string of dissents followed by a few assents (signaling "now that I have
clearly communicated my opposition, I will soften it in
the hope that you will negotiate").
Asch (1956) reported group data that is at least
roughly similar to what the values-pragmatics hypothesis predicts: The highest rates of agreement occurred on Trials 4 and 10, with Trials 6 and 12 next
highest. However, because Asch (1956) did not counterbalance his line stimuli (i.e., smaller and larger differences in length), interpretation is difficult. Virtually no studies since Asch's (1956) have provided
data regarding order.
7. The values-pragmatics hypothesis generates anotherintriguing and unasked question. What would happen if participants found themselves in the inverse of the
Asch situation, that is, they do not have clear and convincing perceptual information on which to base their
answers, but others are in a good position to perceive
what is true and participants can see this? If participants
want to be accurate in such a situation, the epistemically
correct action would be to trust others and agree with
their answers. However, if participants see themselves
as working with others in a kind of conversation, then
they will not want to contribute "nothing" to the conversation. As a result, we predict that-just as Asch (195 1)
was surprised by how often his participants agreed with
obviously incorrect others-participants with poor perceptual evidence will "shockingly often" offer answers
that disagree with others whom they know have very
good perceptual evidence.
8. It is interesting to compare the normative standards used in social developmental studies to evaluate
children and adults: Adults are expected to be independent; children are expected to be compliant and cooperative (Feinman, 1992). By contrast, the values-pragmatics hypothesis proposes that children are
motivated to realize multiple values such as truth and
social solidarity (similar to adults). For example, when
placed in situations where perceptual evidence and social information are in tension, children will often dissent from the social consensus (as do adults). Evidence
(e.g., Crittenden & DiLalla, 1988; Feinman, 1992;
Kuczynski & Hildebrandt, 1997; Matas, Arend, &
Sroufe, 1978) indicates that children care about truth,
not just approval, and engage in more dissent than is
generally appreciated. Furthermore, their concern for
truth and dissent does not appear to be a denial of their
involvement in social relationships, but a means "developing a stake" in them (Kuczynski & Hildebrandt,
1997).
Social Diversity, Multiple Strategies,

and Survival
If participants in Asch-type dilemmas are constrained by multiple values and multiple relationships,
they might adopt varying strategies for balancing those
multiple values and relationships in ways that are pragmatically promising and morally defensible. Is there
evidence for such varying strategies? Asch's (1951,
1956) findings (Table 1) revealed three distinct peaks
in the distribution of the number of times participants
agreed with the incorrect majority, occurring at 0, 3,
and 8 agreements. Perhaps this result reflects the fact
that there are multiple attractors (i.e., values) guiding
the behavior of participants and that varying groups of
participants are following different strategies for resolving the tensions between these attractors.
There might be three strategies, one associated with
each of the peaks. The first strategy (demonstrated by
participants who agreed zero times) highlights clarity,
which entails paying close attention to perceptual differences and the willingness to differentiate oneself
from others' judgments. Given there are multiple values, this strategy works to maximize the most salient
value in the situation, which in the Asch situation is
truth.
A second strategy (reflected by participants who
agreed three times) highlights the values of coherence
and complexity. These values motivate the fitting together of the self, the experimenter, others participants,
and perhaps superaddressees into a complex pattern
that gives weight to all the varying perceptions and obligations. This pragmatic approach to balancing multiple relationships and various moral obligations yields a
"truth with tolerance" pattern.
A third strategy (illustrated by those who agreed
eight times) gives greater weight to social solidarity
with their peers than to other obligations and relationships. This highlights comprehensiveness, which is
concerned with continuity and flexibility (or survival
and adaptability). This "safety in numbers" strategy is
the one that gives the lead to trust and loyalty.
Asch thought the first strategy, clarity and truth, was
morally the most appropriate. Campbell (1990) defended the third strategy as necessary for the survival
of groups, but Asch (1990) demurred from Campbell's
view that consensus generally prevails over truth.
Our perspective differs in several ways. First, both
Asch (1956) and Campbell (1990) failed to note the
second strategy (i.e., truth with tolerance). Second, we
think that there may not be a single best strategy that
applies equally to the answers of all participants. Although we share Asch's (1990) reservations about the
comprehensiveness and consensus strategy (the third
strategy), what would be crucial for establishing the
moral worth of any of the strategies is whether they
13
HODGES AND GEYER
were intended to honor all the relevant values and relationships. If, for example, it were shown that pure dissenters cared nothing for their peers, but cared only for
asserting their own view, we might question the narrowness of their moral vision. Third, we speculate that
the biological, social, and moral integrity of communities might best be served by the existence of a diversity
of strategies that honor the multiplicity of values. This
might be a metastrategy, a strength-in-diversity approach. This analysis has affinities for dynamical systems or complexity theory (Kauffman, 1995; Nowak &
Vallacher, 1998), evolutionary dynamics (Caporael &
Baron, 1997; Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003), and social
functionalist frameworks (Tetlock, 2002) that deserve
exploration. Finally, these strategies may not vary only
between individuals or subgroups. They could be a set
of functions that would vary within individuals over
time and across tasks.
Discussion: Promise and Problems

Our primary purpose in this article has been to offer
a nonconformist account of the Asch (1951, 1956) dilemma that has theoretical and empirical promise. It is
nonconformist in several ways. First, it challenges the
normative standards by which participants' answers
are usually judged. Second, it frames the dilemma in
terms of values. Third, it argues that the "power of
truth" (Asch, 1990) is central to the results, not conformity. Fourth, it offers a new explanation of how and
why participants might have sometimes agreed with
the majority that is supported by research in
pragmatics (including cross-cultural studies) and negotiation. Fifth, it shifts the focus of attention away
from pressures on cognitive minorities that might undermine their integrity (the conformity analysis) toward minority members' agency. It highlights the possibility of members of cognitive minorities having a
concern for speaking the truth of their convictions in
ways that effectively engage the majority so that they
can improve their life together.
More specifically, we proposed that individual participants tacitly varied their answers over time as a
pragmatic expression of the truth of their situation and
as a signal of their acknowledgment of disagreement
and their openness to further conversation. Further, we
posited that there might be individual differences in
sensitivity to various values and relationships, yielding
a more accurate and adaptive representation of the situation than any one person's actions could be.
In support of the values-pragmatics account, we
evaluated existing theoretical accounts of the Asch dilemma. Our review indicated that existing accounts of
the Asch studies offer an incomplete and inconsistent
patchwork of hypotheses that in many cases do not ex-
plain basic findings of the studies. By comparison the

values-pragmatics hypothesis appears to be a plausible
and promising alternative. Moreover, it offers a theoretical context that frames the multiple relations and
concerns that prior theories have highlighted, and it
poses the possibility that there are multiple strategies
that might be operative in honoring multiple values and
multiple relationships. Available evidence for predictions and implications of the values-pragmatics account, several of which are counterintuitive from conformity perspectives, is encouraging but not definitive.
Our analysis should not be confused with a phenomenology of how individuals construe the Asch situation. It is not primarily the intentions of the individual participants that must be addressed, but the
intentional dynamics of the situation as a whole, including how participants are constrained by the intentions of the experimenter, other participants, the perceptual situation, and the larger ecosystem within
which they all exist (Juarrero, 1999). In particular, we
have attempted to draw attention to the ecosystem level
of analysis, which we characterized in terms of values
(Hodges & Baron, 1992).
Better Morality, Better Science
Others, before us, have wished that psychologists
would approach the Asch situation from new directions, rather than staying in the conformity rut (Allen,
1965; Asch, 1961; Campbell, 1990; Friend et al., 1990;
Hollander & Willis, 1967; Ross et al., 1976; Santee &
Maslach, 1982; Wiesenthal et al., 1978). Many of the
concerns raised in their reviews and reflections still
seem applicable; however, they do not seem to have
had a noticeable effect in reorienting psychological
theory or research regarding these matters. There are,
no doubt, many reasons for this lack of change. One
reason is that many of these critiques still framed their
concerns in terms of conformity, even while challenging it. A second might be Campbell's (1990) criticism
that researchers themselves are conformists. Another
is Krueger and Funder's (2004) complaint of
"negativity" in social psychology. We wish to consider
another intriguing possibility, that social psychologists
are closet moralists. That is, social psychologists
sometimes believe they should warn students,
policymakers, and practitioners of various dangers, fallacies, and temptations, and they may fear that if their
advice is not simple and pointed, it will be misunderstood or misapplied.
For example, consider Gilovich and Eibach's
(2001) objection against Sabini, Siepmann, et al.'s
(2001b) attempt to challenge and complicate our understanding of findings often labeled as the fundamental attribution error. They claimed that Sabini,
Siepmann, et al.'s analysis "robs social psychology of
14
one [of] its great humanizing messages" (p. 26).

Sabini, Siepmann, and Stein (2001a) responded that
simplistic moral advice undermines human responsibility. Similarly, Asch's experiments have been used to
warn people of the dangers of conformity with the
hope that it will encourage independence of thought
and action. To consider the experiments as dealing
with a socially and morally complex situation, where
being truthful means more than just asserting one's
own view without respect to who else is involved and
what has been said earlier, may seem to undermine the
experiments' ability to teach us anything. We think the
opposite is true. We believe the moral dimensions of
the Asch situation need to be highlighted more than
they have been. But doing so requires that we are responsible to our scientific task of describing the situation and what occurs in it as accurately, comprehensively, and coherently as possible, even if this yields a
complex pattern.
Acknowledging these complexities will, we hope,
help us as psychologists to avoid the moralistic approach we sometimes take toward those we study and
their activities. As psychologists, we often assume that
what is good or evil, right or wrong, is self-evident and
need not be included as part of our investigation
(Messick & Ohme, 1998). We believe that careful consideration of moral dimensions of social phenomena
will improve the empirical content of our theories, just
as debates on epistemic standards have sharpened research in thinking and reasoning (e.g., Stanovich &
West, 2000).
Traditional approaches overlook entirely the
epistemic weaknesses and possible moral defects in
the independence Asch desired and expected. They
also underestimate the legitimacy and importance of
cooperation, tact, and social solidarity in situations that
are tense or difficult. Our normative evaluations would
improve if the unit of evaluation shifted from a concern
with single acts by individual actors to a concern with
the direction of a person's activity over time in concert
with what others are doing. Making such a shift would
move our evaluation beyond a static and individualist
analysis to a consideration of individual acts in a larger
social, developmental context.

We think the view of human nature offered by the
values-pragmatics approach is stronger and subtler
than the one offered by previous analyses framed in
terms of conformity and compliance. However, it is
possible that our view of the communicative concerns
for truth, social solidarity, cooperation, and justice is
too kind to Asch's participants. Others (Batson,
Thompson, & Chen, 2002; Gilovich & Eibach, 2001)
would remind us of the limitations of moral motivation
and the extent of hypocrisy. We, too, are convinced that
humans often are foolish, fickle, selfish, and worse
(e.g., Baumeister, 1997; Waller, 2002). Yet we also be-
lieve that humans often are considerate and responsi-
ble, concerned for others as well as for themselves,

genuinely motivated by values such as justice, truth,
and freedom. We agree with Krueger and Funder
(2004) that what is needed is a more "balanced," "realistic," and "compassionate view of human nature."
Although pointing to a view of humans as being
more moral and other-regarding than social psychologists often acknowledge, we have also noted the complexity of the moral life and the demand that many of
our actions will need to be what are often scornfully referred to as "compromises." But there is another perspective: What can be viewed as compromises may actually be attempts at integrating multiple values that
are in tension in ways that preclude any one of them being maximized.9 The result of such integrative activity
will seem inconsistent to some (i.e., rationalists), irritating to others (i.e., those whose views are contradicted), and unethical to others (i.e., single-value purists). But to others, the integrity achieved, messy and
muddled though it is, will be a mark of grace.
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