In the early 1950s, psychologist Soloman Asch carried out an experiment that would later go on to become a classic study of human behavior.

Imagine you are 1 of 6 people sitting in a classroom, in preparation for an observation test.

An instructor comes in and presents to you a series of black lines:

(image credit: Wikipedia)

Each volunteer is now required to say out loud, which line in the right box is of the same length as the line in the left box.

Seems easy enough!

The first volunteer says “B”.

The second volunteer says “B”.

The third volunteer says “B”.

The fourth volunteer says “B”.

It is now your turn… what do you say?

Surprising Results

It turns out, at least 70% of the test subjects said “B” at some point.

What the test subjects didn’t know is that this was not really an observation test, and that all the other volunteers were collaborators.

This was actually a test on how group opinion influences that of the individual.

In 12 trials, 75% of participants gave at least one wrong answer by going along with the other volunteers.

Control Experiment

In a control experiment where there was no pressure to conform to the other “volunteers”, the error rate dropped to less than 1%.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Conformity In Trading

In the trading, conformity to group opinion is a dangerous thing, because after all, the majority of traders lose money.

So maybe think about what you’ve learned from various trading forums, books and websites.

Have you verified any of it? Or have you just followed the popular opinion, and assumed it’s correct?

With human nature being what it is, the Asch experiment is likely to stay relevant for a long time.