ipl-logo

Solomon Asch Conformity

1964 Words8 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sociology quizlet conformity

In the 1950s, social psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to determine how vulnerable people are to social influence. He organized a psychological experiment, in which a subject was in a room with eight-to-ten other people. Unbeknownst to the subject was the fact that the other participants were really just confederates, following instructions from the examiner. That very examiner arrives and informs the subject that they will be participating in a study involving concerns for people’s visual judgments. They proceed to set down two cards in front of the subject: one contains a single line, while the second contains three lines of various lengths. It’s clear what is wanted of the subject – to choose the correct matching line. The …show more content…

The results more than concerned Asch, who conducted a second, revised experiment to further analyze this. Allowing the subject to write down their answer after hearing the answers from the confederates lowered the conformity rate by one third (“Solomon Asch experiment”), which was a bit comforting, but not by much. Regardless, concern was still present. “Why?” Asch wondered. What could possibly be causing these subjects to picking the wrong answer, even when they knew it wasn’t the right answer? In order to learn more, Asch interviewed the subjects after the experiment, asking them why they conformed with the group. Majority of the subjects “stated that while they knew the rest of the group was wrong, they did not want to risk facing ridicule”, while a few of the subjects “suggested that they actually believed the other members of the group were correct in their answers” (Cherry 1). This makes sense, doesn’t it? At some point in our lives, we’ve conformed to fit in with our peers. Suppose we’re in a class and there’s a test going on, where you raise your hand to pick the right answer. If we see our peers continuously picking the answers we believe aren’t correct, there’s a chance we may conform and switch to their answers, either because we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves for being the odd man out, or because we truly believe that they are picking the right

Show More
Related
1171 Words | 5 Pages

Frequently, people will not give in to admitting they’re wrong, even though there may be facts in front of them. Wooden-headedness plays a remarkably large role in human actions and decisions.

Read More
1043 Words | 5 Pages

This Milgram research on respect to authority figures was a series of cultural science experiments conducted by Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram in 1961. They assessed the willingness of survey participants, men from a different variety of jobs with varying degrees of training, to obey the authority figure who taught them to do acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to think that they were helping an unrelated research, in which they had to distribute electrical shocks to the individual. These fake electrical shocks gradually increased to grades that could have been deadly had they been true. McLeod's article about the Milgram experiment exposed the fact that a high percentage of ordinary people will

Read More
767 Words | 4 Pages

This concept isn’t necessarily intentional, “peer pressure can cause conformity… whether this is because people disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes or if it was just compliance, that people hide their opinions” (Shuttleworth). The real life Asch Experiment that took place in 1950 tested first hand how easily it was for a man’s mind to be changed if the other men around him disagreed with his opinion. That is showcased perfectly in Fahrenheit 451 when Montag questioned the other firemen during a simple card game about the original description of their job. When he was told “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin.

Read More
1337 Words | 6 Pages

The Asch Conformity Experiments were conducted to measure conformity in a randomized group of people. These experiments uncovered that at least 75% of participants went along with the rest of the group at least one time, even if the answer was wrong. Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, is a story about a dystopian society. In this society firemen do not save burning buildings, instead they are the ones who burn books and houses. This is in order to promote the conformity of citizens.

Read More
1541 Words | 7 Pages

People’s memories are greatly affected by preconceptions and the emotions that come with them. When one’s memories are challenged the response is that they must be right, and everyone else must be wrong. Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson shows this example when during his show “Cosmos” where he inaccurately uses a quote from two different speeches of President George Bush’s to express a science of how stars were named. The quote was implying prejudice tendencies in Mr. Bush right after 9/11, and when Dr. Tyson was confronted of his misinterpretation his overconfidence of his memories he instantly configured that the confronters were incorrect. After evidence proved of his misconception, he admitted to his mistake and publicly apologized.

Read More
810 Words | 4 Pages

During the 1960’s Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments to test how a person reacts to authority. He started these tests in response to World War Two and the reports of the German soldiers who claimed they were “just following orders’ when asked about

Read More
1976 Words | 8 Pages

Milgram’s experiment displays how much was situated in a time and how his life affected his choices, and his experiments have gained notoriety. The discursive approach to attitudes builds on a criticism of key assumptions and methods of the cognitive social approach and highlights the limitations of the experimental method for developing a comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon such as obedience. Through Gibson’s rhetorical analysis he highlighted the importance of the interaction between participant and experimenter which suggests that the standard view on experiments could do with revising. The experimental setting although it is great in most cases it can create a hostile environment with individuals acting out of character and therefore not creating the best results. Gibson has highlighted that the nervous anxious participants that were portrayed in the original papers were in fact passive and argumentative and that’s just by looking at it differently and examining different things such as the language people use to be persuasive.

Read More
371 Words | 2 Pages

The Milgram experiment and the society Speaking of one of the most renowned psychological experiment, which even replications on TV are done, is the Milgram experiment, on obedience to authority figures. It involves the measurement of how much participants will to obey the authority, in order to explain the reason why soldiers obeyed to allow the Holocaust, the homicides of millions of Jews, happened. With the participants’ roles as a teacher to punish a learner by incrementing degrees of electric shocks, though they didn’t know it’s staged, 65% of them did it to the last under the horrendous moans and the commands of the experimenters, which surpassed the expectation of 1.2%. Milgram himself elaborated two theories, encompassing theory of

Read More
396 Words | 2 Pages

On January 13, a 28-year-old Odessa woman was driving the wrong way down a one-way road while under the influence of an alcohol drink, and she ended up getting hit. Unfortunately, a six-year-old passenger in the woman’s vehicle suffered a skull fracture. The Odessa woman was charged with intoxication assault, a third-degree felony, which is even more serious than a typical DWI conviction. Here are some reasons you will want to avoid a DWI: Your first DWI offense will result in jail time of between three days and 180 days. You will face up to a $2,000 fine.

Read More
950 Words | 4 Pages

(Russell 2014) Conclusion: Despite controversy Milgram’s experiment was ground breaking. It remains relevant today and is frequently cited in demonstrating the perils of obedience.

Read More
284 Words | 2 Pages

One of the most infamous experiments conducted in the history of psychology was the Stanford Prison Experiment. The main objective of this experiment was to see what effects would occur when a psychological experiment into human nature was performed. As I read through the material provided, I noticed that my thoughts on the matter were similar to many; that it was a complete failure as a scientific research project. However, his findings did provide us with something much more important that is still being talked about today; insight into human psychology and social behavior.

Read More
981 Words | 4 Pages

The Milgram experiment was conducted to analyze obedience to authority figures. The experiment was conducted on men from varying ages and varying levels of education. The participants were told that they would be teaching other participants to memorize a pair of words. They believed that this was an experiment that was being conducted to measure the effect that punishment has on learning, because of this they were told they had to electric shock the learner every time that they answered a question wrong. The experiment then sought out to measure with what willingness the participants obeyed the authority figure, even when they were instructed to commit actions which they seemed uncomfortable with.

Read More
928 Words | 4 Pages

Name : Muhammed Irshad Madonna ID : 250509 Subject : Medical Ethics Due Date : 8/01/2018 Paper : 1-The Milgram Experiment The Stanley Milgram Experiment is a famous study about obedience in psychology which has been carried out by a Psychologist at the Yale University named, Stanley Milgram. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In July 1961 the experiment was started for researching that how long a person can harm another person by obeying an instructor.

Read More
2094 Words | 9 Pages

The Little Albert experiment was a case study showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study also provides an example of stimulus generalization. It was carried out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University. The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology. After observing children in the field, Watson hypothesized that the fearful response of children to loud noises is an innate unconditioned response.

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

It showed how normal civilians acted when they were given authority over others. Even the most cordial, intelligent people can take on an evil, machiavellianistic nature when introduced to a dominant role in an individualized setting. This experiment taught psychologists so many things about human behavior and the prison system. It is an event that is taught in classrooms all over the world. While some people question the ethics of the experiment, it paved the way for more understanding as well as the reform of psychological practices

Read More

More about Solomon Asch Conformity

Related Topics

Open Document