Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Solomon Asch experiment (1958): A study of conformity

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html

Our answers to social situations are brought about by those that surround us. The observations we make about the world are altered by others' judgments, whether it is realized or not.
When asked to compare the lengths of lines, the subjects of this particular study were incredibly swayed by the other participants' answers (social perception of the lines). They decided to give differing answers than what they truly saw for fear of being considered wrong or different.

11 comments:

  1. I found Solomon Ash experiment of Social Pressure and Perception to be extremely interesting. The experiment was examining the extent to which pressure from other people could affect one's perceptions. I see examples of this happening all the time. The experiment discovered that most people tend to agree with the majority even if they know the answer is incorrect, people do this for fear of being ridiculed or thought “peculiar.” People would also agree with the majority if they feel that they are more informed or have more knowledge of the subject. A good example of a situation was given on the article “Suppose you go to a fancy dinner party and notice to your dismay that there are four forks beside your plate. When the first course arrives, you are not sure which fork to use. If you are like most people, you look around and use the fork everyone else is using. You do this because you want to be accepted by the group and because you assume the others know more about table etiquette than you do”.

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  2. I really like this experiment; it seems so simple but so true in many different cases. We often feel pressure from our social context that makes us to conform to what most people is doing. In the experiment with comparing the width of lines, because people are afraid to be laugh at if they say something different from everyone else. I find it interesting that some people claim that they actually think some answers are right, do they really think so are they just don’t want to emit that they are wrong. I think this kind of situation often happen in a class room context. People tend to be afraid to be wrong and be mock by others, therefore often when teacher asked certain question that most people don’t know, few people will say something similar but not necessarily right, people who actually know the answer will start to afraid that they made a mistake then conform with the answer everyone else now believe in.

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  3. The Soloman Asch experiment demonstrated how easily we conform to the majority in a social setting. Obviously it didn't really matter which line was longer, in a few hours we completely forget about that simple question because it would not affect our lives in the long run, so why should it matter if we agree with everyone else? But it does matter. The experiment showed how the participants feared being an outcast or being ridiculed for being different. I've seen this happen almost every group lab project we did in junior high science. The person that was loudest and most adamant about being right was normally conformed to whether or not that person was correct. Because in junior high it was imperative to not be singled out for any reason.

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  4. I remember reading about this same type of experiment a few years ago and this post reminded me just how fascinating the implications of this study are. The results that the researchers came up with pose a dangerous and important question. If human beings are willing to conform to something we know to be wrong in a small matter such as a line test, in what other, larger and possibly more global contexts are we willing to conform? How do the conformation of us as individuals, communities and societies affect the world and the future?

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  5. The Soloman Asch experiment was indeed very interesting. It gets you thinking about larger scale social settings where conformity might occur. Like Rob said above, if we are willing to conform to something as small and insignificant as a perception test then what else are we willing to conform to? While I was reading the article I was not too surprised by the outcomes/statistics. Before they were announced in the text, I understood that it is very common for individuals to succumb to peer pressure and have the desire to be liked. I too see conformity occuring around me often. For an example, it occurred in our social psychology class the other week. During the game where two truths are told and one lie is told, people would second guess which answer they raised their hands for as they looked around the room. If hardly anyone was raising their hands, you would see some half raised arms slowly go back down. If a good amount of the class had their hands raised, a few more hands would sneak up after professor asked for a recount. Apparently its often human nature to go along with the majority even if its not what one personally believes in.

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  6. In this experiment, the subject had to determine the veracity of something which both had a definite answer and was easily determined; yet, of course, the social pressure of the group could still sway their behavior, even when the subject admitted that they knew the answer they gave was wrong. In the real world, questions of ethics are never simple or even provably correct, so we would expect to– and do– find even higher rates of conformity than those demonstrated in this experiment. These findings correspond to similar issues of peer pressure demonstrated by Milgram's experiment about obedience, which found that people are willing to hurt innocent others when instructed by a voice of authority, and the Zimbardo Prison Experiment, which again proved that a combination of social roleplaying and conformity can lead people to grievously harm people even when, as individuals, the perpetrator claims they would do no such thing.

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  7. This study is very interesting. It really shows how important socializing is to our species, since the study proves that even when its obvious to the subject being tested that their answer is right, they agree to the wrong answer since the vast majority is adamant about picking a different answer. It can easily be said that this happens because the one with the answer that differs from everyone else's is more afraid of being isolated due to their difference in opinion than they are afraid of going along with the incorrect choice.

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  8. I think that his study confirms what some might have experienced in a group project setting. Where for example the "loud" and sometimes even annoying group member becomes the group leader due to the other member's conceding to their will. This experiment also recalls an article I skimmed in class the other day regarding how well spoken individuals, competent or not win over higher leadership positions far more often than those that are competent but maybe not loud.

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  9. This experiment is very interesting and easy to understand because I strongly agree with the result. Though I am usually the type of person who "stick to my guns" when I think I am right, sometimes I can not express my opinion when people who seem know more than me have different opinion. For instance, when doing art crit in a painting class, when others, including the professor, say they like the color in the painting, I can not say I do not like the color even though I think that.
    The article says that the subjects "had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar."" But how would others really think when they hear a different opinion that opposes theirs? Would they really redicule and isolate the person?

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  10. When I first started reading the article about the Solomon Asch study I thought that if put in such a situation, I would definitely give the answer that I thought was correct regardless of the majority opinion. After seeing the results of the study and how many of the subjects stuck with the group, I started to second guess myself. I'm no longer very certain of what I would do. The extent to which the group affected the subjects' answers was pretty shocking.

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  11. As I was reading about the Solomon Asch Experiment, I first thought about how the experiment question was directed towards me to answer at first. I had immediately formed my own opinion that the initial line matched line A.
    Being a visual person, I knew immediately that I was right and as I read further in the article on how others changed their opinions based off of the more popular pick (no matter if it was correct) it made me feel like that is true in some cases.
    I found that interesting because unlike alot of us at Pratt or the more visual learning community, people who aren't right brain thinkers may not see the correct sized line as easily as we might. They might be the type of people to waiver in opinion on what is the "true" answer.
    I will stick to my original answer, through and through! I wont waiver. It just depends on the type of person or type of thinker you are. This experiment was definitely something interesting to read and think about.

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