Conformity: Human Response to Group Pressure
In the early 1950s, Solomon Asch conducted a series experiments how group pressure from a majority group influences on individuals and individuals can be conformed with a majority group defying their right judgments and reported the article, “Opinion and Social pressure”. The author commented, “This tests not only demonstrate the operation of group pressure upon individuals but also illustrate a new kind of attack on the problem and some of the more subtle questions that it raises” (Asch 598). These results of experiments imply that conformity to a majority group in these experiments can apply to the society extensively.
In the experiments, one naïve subject and the other members who are instructed by the experimenter beforehand are to compare two white cards, choose the same length line and speak out their choice: One card contains a single vertical black line that was a standard line and the other card has three variously lengthened vertical lines one of which was the same length of a standard line. Asch observes the reactions of the one naïve subject while instructed …show more content…
Asch emphasizes the application of the result of these experiments to the society beyond the laboratory. Asch says, “Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contributes independently out of experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends” (602). In the future, it is important to look for individual’s traits that will not be conformed and will express themselves independently and the way how they are educated in further
In the early 1950s, Solomon Asch conducted a series experiments how group pressure from a majority group influences on individuals and individuals can be conformed with a majority group defying their right judgments and reported the article, “Opinion and Social pressure”. The author commented, “This tests not only demonstrate the operation of group pressure upon individuals but also illustrate a new kind of attack on the problem and some of the more subtle questions that it raises” (Asch 598). These results of experiments imply that conformity to a majority group in these experiments can apply to the society extensively.
In the experiments, one naïve subject and the other members who are instructed by the experimenter beforehand are to compare two white cards, choose the same length line and speak out their choice: One card contains a single vertical black line that was a standard line and the other card has three variously lengthened vertical lines one of which was the same length of a standard line. Asch observes the reactions of the one naïve subject while instructed …show more content…
Asch emphasizes the application of the result of these experiments to the society beyond the laboratory. Asch says, “Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contributes independently out of experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends” (602). In the future, it is important to look for individual’s traits that will not be conformed and will express themselves independently and the way how they are educated in further