A Experiment On Conformity And The Theory Of Conformity

All human beings have a need to be accepted in society and to belong to a group. Throughout life, children are raised to make friends, get an education, obtain a job, and create a family of their own to teach this cycle to. If an individual does not follow this track they are often ostracized and rejected by society and the groups within it. Individuals have a need to belong to a group and are willing to perform actions such as lying, liking a popular subject, and conforming to the majority in order to secure a spot within a group. Conformity begins at an early stage in life. Usually it begins through school and education. Individuals want to belong and in order to succeed at this will partake in certain activities (such as sports or clubs),

During this experiment, the researcher would be observing the actions and motions of the individual being tested to see how conformity plays its part. A theorist that would support this claim would be Emile Durkheim. Durkheim claimed that social facts are a huge part of society and that individuals are bound to cultural norms and values (Ritzer 2016). Social facts play a large role in this conformity experiment because the individual is bound to social norms and values. Some values and norms that the individual holds are being accepted by society and the majority group, and believing that the majority is always

The participates involved would be college freshmen and both males and females would be participating in the experiment. A random sample would be most effective because no specific quality, such as race or gender, is being tested, so a random group of college freshmen would be suitable for the experiment. The experiment would be conducted in a normal sized classroom and the instructor would pose a fairly easy question and begin to call on random individuals to answer the said question. The instructor would call on at least five students (who all know to answer incorrectly) before they called on the individual that was being observed. By the time it was the individual’s turn to answer, they may rethink their answer in order to belong with the group and the instructor even though they know that answer is incorrect. Throughout the experiment, the researcher would be a nonparticipant observer and not be one of the five students who answer the question. This would be for the best because the researcher does not want to make the tested individual feel uncomfortable or sway them to answer a certain way. This experiment would be considered a natural experiment as well because the researcher is not manipulating any variables, but instead, just observing the individual and their response to the posed question. By not interfering and observing the experiment, the researcher can receive the most