Solomon Asch's Experiment 1951

1. What rationale do the author(s) give for conducting the study? The author that is conducting this research is testing the obedience of a subject when dealing with “stocking a victim” by use of a shock generator. There are thirty levels of shock that are generated varying from a slight shock to a severe shock.

However, Dobrin writes in The Astonishing Power of Social Pressure that, “On average, subjects went along with incorrect answers more than 40 percent of the time.” (Dobrin). Solomon Asch, a psychologist, conducted one of the earliest and best-known studies on this topic in which participants were handed two cards. On the first

When people commit to doing something they often feel the need to follow through, due to their desire to not look inconsistent to other people. Interestingly, Cialdini states that, “a high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength.” This is a trait that is highly valued in our culture. Since this trait is valued so highly, I wanted to test how many people actually possess this very valuable quality in the general population.

Herd behavior modified one’s thoughts and discourages others’ self-confidence. Group think influences others to not use their brains but to channel their emotions through feelings and emotions. This action to pressure individuals to conform, influence members of a group, to rely on others to stay safe and cancel out their opportunities to channel their own thoughts. In the teleplay “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” written by Rod Serling, the article “When Good People Do Bad Things” written by Ann Trafton, and the article “Why Do People Follow The Crowd?” reported by ABC News, all provide instances where people lose touch with themselves and behave differently in a crowd.

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.

In a study done about conformity, many people followed a group's answer despite it being wrong. “In getting along with other people, most decent people know, as Hodges and Geyer put it, the ‘importance of cooperation, tact and social solidarity in situations that are tense or difficult’” (Berreby 1). This makes it clear that many people value cooperation more than they value correctness. The experiment suggests conformity is generally considered more important during decision-making in society.

Conformity In 1963, Stanley Miligran and Philip Zimbardo conducted a social experiment in which two people were partnered up, one the teacher, one the learner. Their goal was to see how far the learner would go in obeying the teachers’ commands. This was an important experiment in the world because it shows how easy it is for evil people to use their power for corruption, even in giving innocent people orders. Miligran was inspired to do this experiment while reviewing the holocaust.

Lastly, Rothwell explains how pressure toward uniformity is another general symptom of groupthink. This occurs when there is an assumed sense of agreement which results in no one speaking up when they have an opposing opinion (p. 251). Often times the false sense of uniformity causes there to be direct pressure on the deviants which does not allow for an open environment for opinions to be shared and considered (Rothwell, 2013, p

Finally, motivation to change their right answers was overwhelming to reduce a stressful situation. Also, due to the information of observation that confirmed at the time the odd person out thought the crowd was correct and considers the

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

Conformity and group mentality are major aspects of social influence that have governed some of the most notorious events and experiments in history. The Holocaust is a shocking example of group mentality, or groupthink, which states that all members of the group must support the group’s decisions strongly, and all evidence leading to the contrary must be ignored. Social norms are an example of conformity on a smaller scale, such as tipping your waiter or waitress, saying please and thank you, and getting a job and becoming a productive member of society. Our society hinges on an individual’s inherent need to belong and focuses on manipulating that need in order to create compliant members of society by using the ‘majority rules’ concept. This

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.

When we are in a group, whatever the group thinks we will one third of the times go along with. “Why did most subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar." A few of them said that they really did believe the group 's answers were correct (Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment). ”

One of the main things that Asch’s experiments teach us is that people are extremely determined to fit in with others. In the short video clip titled “Would You Fall For That - Elevator Experiment”, we learned that people conform to the majority rather than risk being alienated from a group. This experiment, in particular, tested the Asch Paradigm to see how far people go to feel like a member of the group. They tested this by means of an elevator experiment in which actors would go in an elevator and face the wrong way and the unsuspecting victims were left to decide for themselves whether or not to conform to the group or to instead do what they felt was considered normal.

however, large majority ended up changing to face the back of the elevator age can predict conformity; younger (youngest) to conform more often (more than 40% of the time), whilst the oldest are least likely to conform (14-24% depending on if they are middle-aged adult or late-age adult - respectively) men are more likely to conform fully, while women showed higher numbers of partial conformity Asch Experiment; subjects told they were participating in a perceptual experiment participants were each placed in a room with 7 “confederates” who were actually actors acting as to be also participants cards were shown to all the participants in their respective groups (with actors) and the participants were seated in a certain way so they would answer last (after each actor in their group) for the first two trials, the actors (everyone) answered correctly - with the most obvious answer after these two trials, they began to experiment whether the participant would also follow them (purposely giving obviously ‘wrong’ answers) subjects tend to follow their groups’ opinion due to ‘group pressure’ a majority of participants that participated (as the subject), tend to ‘follow’ the majority of the group → following their answers, despite knowing that the answer is obviously