Analysis Of Follow The Leader

1345 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effects of peer pressure

Follow the Leader

Asch (1955) conducted a study, Opinions and Social Pressure, to better understand the issue of “perceptual conformity” and determine how powerful conformity is in influencing the perceptions, beliefs, opinions, and actions of individual members within a group as well as determine whether or not a change in the opinion of some group members results in participants being less likely to conform to others’ beliefs and perceptions. While Asch was interested in overall conformity and finding out how powerful the need to conform is in influencing one’s behavior, his study focused on a laboratory based “visual perception study” (Hock, 2013, 294) whereby all seven of the participants of the control group and the one real participant …show more content…

Moreover, as no real life consequences existed for participants who conformed in providing the same wrong answer as the control group, I question how accurate the results were, as the participants had no valuable incentive to think independently. I believe these issues could have potentially resulted in a feeling of apathy for the participants and played an unintended role in the study, making me wonder how the results could be applied to more important societal issues of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as underage drinking, drug use, texting and driving, and cyber bullying. As conformity is a very broad and subjective psychological issue caused by many factors, such as acceptance, personal preservation, lack of awareness of other ways of life, fear of punishment, and varying degrees of consequences for non conformity, controlled laboratory settings and experiments designed around dependent variables cannot adequately measure this psychological

Show More
Related

  • Conformity In Elie Wiesel's Night

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    It often leads to people adjusting responses to stimuli just because they believe that if everyone else has the same response they must have it too. This is shown in "Asch Experiment" after McLeod explained how the dot of light never moved, he mentioned, "The participants are then asked to estimate how far the dot of light moves. These estimates are made out loud, and with repeated trials, each group of three converges on an estimate. The main finding of the study was that groups found their own "social norm" of perception." (McLeod 2) This shows that when placed in an environment where some people have a different opinion than others, the popular opinion takes over and everyone's opinion becomes uniform because people doubt themselves when they are alone on an opinion, leading to conformity. People in environments like this should try to keep their own opinions as to prevent the spread of conformity when uniqueness is

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Perils Of Obedience

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    Comparative Analysis Obedience to authority and willingness to obey an authority against one’s morals has been a topic of debate for decades. Stanley Milgrim, a Yale psychologist, conducted a study in which his subjects were commanded by a person in authority to initiate lethal shocks to a learner; his experiment is discussed in detail in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgrim 77). Milgrim’s studies are said to be the most “influential and controversial studies of modern psychology” (Levine). While the leaner did not actually receive fatal shocks, an actor pretended to be in extreme pain, and 60 percent of the subjects were fully obedient, despite evidence displaying they believed what they were doing was harming another human being (Milgrim 80). Likewise, Dr. Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted an experiment, explained in his article “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” in which ten guards were required to keep the prisoners from escape and under control.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Behavioral Study Of Obedience By Stanley Milgram

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    It stays on track with relevant information from introduction to conclusion, and with practice reading experimental research articles, the reader should have little to no difficulty understanding the language and terminology of the article. The author does an exceptional job explaining how the predicted results and the actual results of the experiment are so different from each other; he offers this concept to the reader through use of numerical data and by discussing how the experimenters believed morals affected obedience prior to and following the experiment. Results are communicated though the use of a table that is easy for any reader, experienced or unexperienced, to understand. The ethical soundness of the study is questionable, however Milgram does highlight some of the precautions taken by the experimenters to assure the well-being of their participants. At the end of the article, he lists multiple possibilities for why the observed amounts of obedience could have been so extreme, however, the article still leaves many questions unanswered. Regardless of the ability of this article to be generalized for an entire population or answer many difficult questions, it still offers insight into an experiment that provided evidence that actions that violate personal moral can be influenced to occur if ordered by some form of authoritative

    Read More

  • The Lead, Follow or Get Out Of The Way Party Explained

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Lead, Follow or Get Out Of The Way Party (LFGOTW Party) is a conservative party that expands upon the ideas of Republicans, and also encourages efficiency. The party has twelve basic planks that form the basis of their platform. The first plank stems from the party’s name, as it encourages all citizens to either lead, follow or get out of the way. Additionally, The LFGOTW Party advocates for spending cuts to non-essential programs in order to reduce the deficit and consequently the national debt, eliminating Social Security and the subsequent tax, and shifting retirement funds to the private sector, decreasing the time that a citizen can collect unemployment to promote individual accomplishment, increasing trade relations with the European Union to create domestic jobs in the natural gas industry, increased violence control as opposed to increased gun control, reform to the Affordable Care Act, an increase in foreign embassy security, appealing proposed military spending cuts to keep our armed forces strong and able, placing stricter sanctions upon The Russian Federation until they reconsider their blatant violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, an increase in United States military presence in Eastern Europe, as well as re-starting work on the European Interceptor Site, and finally, Chris Christie for President in 2016.

    Read More

  • Conformity Theory

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    So far, conformity has been discussed in terms of group identification and social roles. However, individuals also tend to change prior beliefs to seek group acceptance. Asch (1951) investigated the effect of group pressure on conformity by asking participants to make a line judgment with seven confederates that gave the same obviously incorrect answer. Yet, 37% of participants conformed by giving the incorrect majority answer, whereas in the absence of group pressure, less than 1% of participants conformed (Asch, 1951). There are implications on normative influence as individuals, despite knowing the majority opinion was incorrect, may conform to avoid social punishment (Breckler et al., 2005). However, Turner and colleagues (1987) argued

    Read More

  • Fear In Lord Of The Flies Quote Analysis

    464 Words  | 1 Pages

    The teachers would initiate a “shock” to the student every time they got an answer wrong, but the teachers were unaware that the shock was fake. As the experiment continued, the shocks became more severe, and the students would plead for the teacher to stop since they were in pain. Despite the fact, that the participants continuously asked the authoritative experimenter if they could stop, “...relatively few people [had] the resources needed to resist authority” (Cherry 5). The participants feared questioning the effectiveness of the experiment, or restraining from continuing in fear of losing their job, going to jail, or getting reprimanded by Yale. A majority of the participants were intimidated by the experimenter, hence why they continued to shock the students, even though they knew morally, it was incorrect what they were doing. This experiment concluded, “...situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining obedience...” (5). One's decisions are based on the situation they are facing. If someone is under pressure, they will resort to illogical decision making. There thoughts could potentially be altered due to fear, or hostility. In conclusion, the rash, incohesive state of mind, provoked by fear will eventually lead to the rise of

    Read More

  • Judith Ortiz Cofer's Abuela Invents The Zero

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    Claim: When making a decision, people are often influenced by the pressure society places on them in order to follow the social norm, or what is socially accepted.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Social Psychology In Heathers

    1490 Words  | 3 Pages

    The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of

    Read More

  • Asch Effect On Conformity Experiment

    535 Words  | 2 Pages

    . . 'A'." This shows how we cave to conformity pressures, and there are multiple factors that encourage conformity in a group of people. Unanimity of the majority is a major factor. If everyone in a group agrees, that leads to extreme social pressure, however if even one person defects from the rest, then amount of social pressure drops drastically. This is the power of an ally. If one person is willing to challenge the group, they also encourage those who are unsure to also join the rebellion. If there are one or two people in a group, there is little pressure. However, when there are three people in a group, then the pressure dramatically increases. Self-esteem, unsurprisingly plays a large role in conforming in the Asch experiment. More conformity is present when the group has a high social status, too. Although the components that allow us to agree with others in a group are many, there will always be individuals who are independents. Despite the powerful pressures in their atmosphere, some can resist it, and stand their ground, even when the group gives a correct answer, and they give the wrong

    Read More

  • Conformity and Obedience in Society

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    Solomon Asch’s experiment in “Opinions and Social Pressure” studied a subject’s ability to yield to social pressure when placed within a group of strangers. His research helped illustrate how groups encourage conformity. During a typical experiment, members of the group were asked by the experimenter to claim two obvious mismatched lines were identical. The single individual who was not privy to this information was the focal point of the experiment. Twelve out of eighteen times the unsuspecting individual went along with the majority, dispelling his beliefs in favor of the opinions of the group.

    Read More

  • Social Psychology: Conformity And Obedience

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    Conformity, compliance and obedience are behavioural consequences of social influence (real or imagined social pressure) that occur in the presence of a group or other individuals (Elsenbroich & Xenitidou, 2012). Often these concepts are misinterpreted as being the same or even synonymous and while they do have similarities they are also very dissimilar. In social psychology conformity, compliance and obedience are distinct concepts that coincide due to their effect on behaviour in the presence of others. Pascual, Line Felonneau, Guéguen & Lafaille (2013) define conformity as an altering of behaviour and beliefs in an individual in order to reflect the behaviour and beliefs of the group that holds influence, though Myers (2014) emphasises that

    Read More

  • Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments (1951)

    1532 Words  | 4 Pages

    Participants were not under any explicit demand to conform, as they received no physical or verbal coercion to do so. The specific hypothesis centered on the idea, “if group pressure can play influence and effect individuals perception, decision and attitudes”. The independent variable will be “Procedure”, and the dependent variable is the “level of conformity did change”.

    Read More

  • Majority or Minority Influence

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.

    Read More

  • Conformity In The Social Animal By Elliot Aronson

    381 Words  | 1 Pages

    Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.

    Read More

  • Leadership and Followership

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the most important components of leadership is the leader. A leader is responsible for his or her followers and the overall goal of the group or organization. Leaders are the people held accountable or everything that happens, good or bad. On the other hand, the second major component of leadership is the followers. Without followers, a leader would be worthless. Followers make up the backbone of a leader because they are the masses that get goals accomplished. A leader is just one person, but the number of followers is countless. In order to be an effective follower, there are a countless number of characteristics that allow a follower to be the best they can be. Five of these characteristics include a positive attitude, communication skills, being part of the process, being open to new ideas, and patience.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Follow The Leader

Open Document