Solomon Asch Award

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