Solomon Asch, a social psychologist conducted a series of experiments called Asch conformity to study how the behavior of a certain group influence the behavior of an individual. In his experiment he formed a group and asked them to choose a line from a given set of lines that corresponds to the target line. In this group all the members except the subject were confederates. The experimenter had informed the confederates to give incorrect answers on purpose. The purpose was to know if the real participant would go along with the group when that group was choosing the obviously incorrect decision. It is also noteworthy that there was no pressure to conform i.e. no price for conforming and no punishment for not. Asch noted that 75% of the participants
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When they were interviewed about this after the experiment, most of the participants noted that they had known they were incorrect but they had a fear of being ridiculed by the group. In psychology this is called ‘Normative Social influence’ which is altering our own behavior to fit better with our surroundings. They perceived what the correct answer was, they knew that they had the correct answer in their minds but went against it regardless. Other individuals said that they conformed because they doubted their own responses. They reasoned that if all the other participants at the table had similar answer then that must have been the correct one. This is referred to as ‘Informational Social influence’. This is when we change our behavior because we assume that others are well informed and that they know more about what’s going on than we do. This reflects a lack of confidence in one’s own self. But for some participants the error was made at the perceptual level. They truly believed that the answers given by the majority were correct. These individuals were never consciously aware that there was any kind of dissonance involved in their judgments. Out of the participants who did not conform, some said that they were absolutely confident about the correct answers while the others confessed that they were uneasy to know that the group had a different
When they were interviewed about this after the experiment, most of the participants noted that they had known they were incorrect but they had a fear of being ridiculed by the group. In psychology this is called ‘Normative Social influence’ which is altering our own behavior to fit better with our surroundings. They perceived what the correct answer was, they knew that they had the correct answer in their minds but went against it regardless. Other individuals said that they conformed because they doubted their own responses. They reasoned that if all the other participants at the table had similar answer then that must have been the correct one. This is referred to as ‘Informational Social influence’. This is when we change our behavior because we assume that others are well informed and that they know more about what’s going on than we do. This reflects a lack of confidence in one’s own self. But for some participants the error was made at the perceptual level. They truly believed that the answers given by the majority were correct. These individuals were never consciously aware that there was any kind of dissonance involved in their judgments. Out of the participants who did not conform, some said that they were absolutely confident about the correct answers while the others confessed that they were uneasy to know that the group had a different