Skip to main content

Solomon Asch Award

Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch was a very distinguished psychologist who was a member of the Swarthmore Psychology Department for many years. The award, which was established in his honor by friends and former students, recognizes the most outstanding independent work in psychology at Swarthmore.

About Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch joined Swarthmore's psychology department in 1947 and for the next 19 years produced the work that would confirm his place among the field's leading innovators. Working with fellow psychologists Wolfgang Köhler and Hans Wallach, he established the department as a premiere center of Gestalt psychology.

In 1951, Asch began the experiments for which he is now best known. Those taking part in his studies found themselves sitting alongside several other people. They were all shown a line of a certain length and asked to state which of three other lines matched it. Unknown to the subjects, all the other people in the room were stooges who gave blatantly wrong answers. Yet such was the power of conformity that three-quarters of them went along with the obviously false consensus at least once. This technique was a powerful lens for examining social influence and gave rise to decades of research on conformity.

Award Recipients

 
Award Year Recipient
2022

Jino Chough, Chloe Savage

2021

Kassidi Cheng, Eleanore Lee

2020

Shelby Nicole Billups, Sadie Elizabeth Camilliere, Elizabeth Ruth Stiles

2019 Elise McKernon Cummings, Seethalaskshmi Halasyamani Davis, Seth A Stancroff
2018 Christina Grace Labows, Rongzhi Liu, Kirsten Natalie Morehouse
2017 Elias Palmer Blinkoff, Tina Olympia Zhu
2016 Daniel Richard Creem, Cecilia Eliane Rosa Paasche
2015 Nathan Norem Cheek, Alexander James Noyes
2014 Rachel Claire Fresques
2013 Miriam Goldstein
2012 Jessica Lee Schleider
2011 Sarah Pearlstein-Levy, Katherine Graves Walton
2010 Selmaan Noah Chettih, Roseanna Catherine Sommers
2009 Jessica Leigh Hamilton, Patrick F. Rock
2008 Lisa Benson, Mark Dlugash
2007 Kristina D. Simmons
2006 Paul Thibodeau
2005 Daniel Keys
2004 Samantha A. Crane, Corey E. Pilver
2003 Laura Frances Fox
2002 Jeffrey Ebert, Matthew S. Oransky
2001 Eve Manz, Jessica Schwartz
2000 Nia Wright
1999 Rachel Goldmann, Aarti Iyer
1998 Nancy Koven, Kimberly Lombardo, Elizabeth Wiles
1997 Benjamin Salter, Sarah Wolfe
1996 Tim Gasperoni, Alexander Huk
1995 David Seligman
1994 Renée Schettler '95