Conformity is something like changing a behaviour or belief to fit in with a crowd or group. There are two studies which support conformity and one of the studies that support this concept is the Solomon Asch study conducted in 1951 to see if a social pressure from a group in the majority could affect someone to conform. The other study which supports conformity is the 1969 Moscovici Study in which Serge Moscovici wanted to see if a group of the minority could make the majority give an incorrect answer in a colour slide test.
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment in 1951 with the hope of seeing if a majority could affect some minorities answer. To do this Asch had 7 participants in his experiment (Overall it was 37) one of whom was unaware
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His method to do this was that he set it up in a lab. Moscovici had six participants (172 in total) two of which were in on the study and he had slides which were blue but had different shades of blue and the two participants would say that the slides were green on every trial. They were also inconsistent in the study conducted because they also said that the slides were green 24 times, and blue 12 times. Moscovici found that at least 32% of all the participants called a green slide at least once also, participants "called the slides green in 8.4% of the trials" (AqaPsychology, 2017). Moscovici concluded that minorities could in fact influence a majority group but, not all the time. Consistent behaviour is a factor which makes a majority change, Moscovici also found that minorities who were inconsistent lacked any significance on the majority groups. A strength of Moscovici's study was that he proved that a minority could influence a majority. Also, another strength is that because it was conducted in a lab it was a controlled environment and that replicating the study is easy. Another strength of Moscovici's study was that the study showed a cause and effect relationship. But, Moscovici's studies had more limitations than Solomon Asch's. The limitation of his study was that …show more content…
This is a valid explanation as to why people conform because through History people from groups of the minority can have an impact on people of the majority conforming. For example, Martin Luther King who was an activist and leader for the Civil Rights Movement. His group started of small and over time due to him being consistent in his views and beliefs, he got mostly the majority to accept that what he was preaching was right and he helped bring a landmark in U.S. History by having the legislation of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act for African Americans. Another example for this question is Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955. In the 50s Black people were treated horrifically and they had to sit at the back of the bus, doing this Rosa's defiance and braveness caused the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the bus segregation. Rosa being in the minority eventually got the majority to accept her for who she was and not the colour of her skin. One more example and a far darker example is that of Adolf Hitler and how Social Influence played a major part in his rise to power during the 20s and eventually becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933. This is an important example of minority influence as he was the leader of the NSDAP which also became
I think the subject in the experiment began to "second guess" himself because he believe that the group was correct because there were more of them then him. The subject began to "second guess" himself when he noticed that the group of students
society, there is not only a tolerance of certain kinds of non-conformity, but sometimes uniqueness and individuality are celebrated. For example, in the last presidential election both Bernie Sander and Donald Trump were campaigning “against” the establishment. They were nonconformist candidates whose campaigns gained supporters based almost entirely on the fact that their ideas went against the “mainstream” candidate moderates in their political parties. Also, in the U.S. today, the government doesn’t enforce conformity. In fact, the Supreme Court has made some decisions in recent years on issues like gay marriage that have upheld the right to be a nonconformist. However, although the government doesn’t enforce conformity, there are many ways that individuals encourage others to conform. For example, in schools and other institutions, individuals who “don’t fit in” are often harassed and bullied for being different. People who look different, dress different, or act different, face a lot of hostility. Also, it is common for individuals with differing opinions, particularly, on political issues to shout each other down. Social media is a platform where often people with unpopular ideas or opinions get bullied into being quiet and keeping their opinion to themselves. Therefore, even though, we seemingly live in a society that is tolerant of nonconformity, there are pressures to conform and be like everyone
...n had over everyone involved has been shown when participants were interviewed months later, and were all extremely surprised about the way they acted during the experiment.
The definition of conformity is the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. The motivation behind normative conformity is the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers
As well as for having the people around them respond to a question differently than their answer. These situations can have a person feeling doubtful of themselves and feeling like they have to change their answers to conform to the majority of people’s responses. Asch informs his readers on an experiment concentrated on the influence of group pressures upon individuals, that he conducted himself. His experiment involved a group of young men, all in college who gathered together to compare the lengths of lines. All subjects were displayed two cards, one with a black single standard line and another card which had three lines with various lengths, and every individual had to answer which line was the same as on the other card (598). He explains that if one other person answers a question differently than the dissenter, it causes the dissenter to doubt and rethink about the choice they made. Asch describes that when a person contradicts the subjects answer, the subject was influenced a little with the confrontation, but continued to answer independently, and when it was two people contradicting the subject’s answer, the subject “accepted the wrong answer 13.6 per cent of the time.” But when it was more than two people, “the subjects’ errors jumped to 31.8 per cent” (Asch 600). He says “The dissenter becomes more and more worried and hesitant as the disagreement continues in succeeding trials; he may
Asch and Milgram’s experiment was unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the details of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress, Asch and Milgram’s replicated the reality of life. In “Options and Social Pressure” Solomon E. Asch conducts an experiment to show the power of social influence, by using the lengths of sticks that the participants had to match up with the best fit, Asch then developed different scenarios to see how great the power of influence is, but what he discovered is that people always conformed to the majority regardless of how big or small the error was the individual always gave in to the power of the majority.
Conformity, or going along with the crowd, is a unique phenomenon that manifests itself in our thoughts and behaviors. It’s quite simple to identify countless examples of the power of conformity in virtually all aspects of social life. Conformity influences our opinions and relationships with others, often to a higher extent than we realize. It is posited that people generally conform to the group in order to fit in and avoid rejection or because they truly believe the group is more knowledgeable than they are. After analyzing numerous studies and experiments on the nature of conformity, one will find that the motive of social acceptance is the greatest driver of conformity.
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
Asch’s Conformity Procedure was where participants were presented with a set of lines. In one case a single line and the other a trio of lines. The participant’s task was simply to find which line in the trio of lines matches the single line in length. When looking at the lines, there is only one line of the trio lines that obviously matches the single line. What Asch did was put participants in groups of collaborators, the actors, to turn in a specific answer. He did this so that the collaborators would give their answers first and then the participant who thinks he’s just one of the participants like the rest gives their answer. What concluded through this experimented was that if you have collaborators systematically giving the wrong answer, then majority of the people will give the wrong answer. (Meyers 158) The peer pressures created by a large group are such that the individual comes to decision radically different from the decision ...
...though the researchers weren’t looking for it, he results represent ideas that can help the bystander effect in a situation. Smaller numbers increase the percentage of realization when it comes down to an emergency. The victim, if cohesive, actually plays a big role in causing the bystander effect as well. When a victim is unable to verbally communicate with bystanders, it lessens the chance of help. If a victim is capable of communicating, the help given could be more efficient. This is because it can help break the diffusion of responsibility. A victim looking a bystander directly in the eyes can even spark a quicker reaction in them. These are all ideas that psychologists still study today, and many even consider learning about this phenomenon a requirement.
The effect of treating one group of children superior to the others was clear in that the children who were treated superior performed better than those of the inferior group and the superior group also behaved better. This same effect is demonstrated in our society where children who are treated as superior tend to do better in school, find better jobs, and live better lives. Whereas, the children were selected to be in the inferior group acted out more and did not do as well scholastically. This is a very similar effect that we see today with minorities, where they do not perform as well in school and tend to find themselves more often than not in trouble with the
Twelve out of eighteen times the unsuspecting individual went along with the majority, dispelling his beliefs in favor of the opinions of the group. Why did a subject conform to two-thirds of the tests? Influence causes us to think and act in ways that are consistent with our group, especially when we look to the group as a source of information. We also tend to assume that a large number of people can’t all be wrong. Asch writes, “the sheer weight of numbers or authority sufficed to change opinions, even when no arguments for the opinions themselves were provided” (p. 337).
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
Asch initiated his experiment by making one of the particpants at ease. He asked a serious of elementary questions where the four confederates answered them correctly so the fifth person also answered the question correct. This in sense gave the participant a false interpretation of the actual thinking behind Asch true experiment. The participants were asked to compare, identify and match one of three lines on the right card to the length of the line on the left card. This task was repeated several times to get a true picture of the data collated.
Though conformity is a humane feeling, many examples of conformity going wrong can be found throughout history. For example, multiple Germans conformed to follow Nazism and prosecuted millions of innocent Jews. Southern whites conformed to segregate thousands of African-Americans. By looking at multiple sources of literature, one can see conformity becomes unacceptable when innocent people are hurt and/or killed and affects the way one thinks or acts.