Asch Opinion And Social Pressure Summary

In the early 1950’s, Solomon Asch a social psychologist conducted many simple, but ingenious experiments called “Opinion and Social Pressure”. Asch discovered by doing these experiments that individuals can be persuaded by a group of people to deny your own sense. Over the years Asch got the information to provide a powerful explanation on how people will forget their own sense and judgment to their peers. In “Opinion and Social Pressure” Asch did many experiments to figure out what the effect would be on if a group pressures an individual throughout a series of tests. Asch had the help of his associates to conduct these experiments. This experiment took place in a classroom with only college students; there were seven to nine young men …show more content…
The subject had two alternatives when answering, he had the option to act alone or he could go along with the majority. Of the 123 that were put to this test a decent amount of student’s agreed with the majority. While as in a normal experiment less than one percent would make a mistake. While when the subject was under pressure he would cave in to his judgment with a 38.6 percent cave in. The most significant fact about the responses of the subjects was when they would recover from the worry of not being right and trusting there answer. The others that couldn’t recover came to believe that the others were correct and that they were answering incorrectly as they kept playing. A group came to the conclusion that the subject said “I am wrong, they are right” (Asch 657). During the experiment the subject was paired with just one individual and that is when the subject kept answering with a strong pride. But when the subject was paired with two individuals that are when the subject answered incorrectly 13.6 percent. Finally the subject was paired with three individuals and the subjects errors nearly doubled to 31.8 percent. When the subject was grouped up another individual that didn’t know about the changes the subject felt a since of warmth and …show more content…
When the subject was put in this situation he broke away from the group and still made his own decisions. The subject’s errors dropped nine percent. The first experiment was to test the subject when they gained or lost a partner. While the subject had the partner, his partner answered correctly on the six trials, but after that he began answering with the majority. After that happened the subjects errors rose significantly. For the next situation the experimenter had the subjects partner leave at a certain point and leave the subject hanging. The subject’s errors then rose significantly again showing that the subject didn’t have confidence in his