Asch Conformity Essay

In 1932, Jenness conducted the first study of conformity. The experiment was ambiguous as there was no right or wrong answer. The study focused on the participants' estimates on the number of beans in a bottle. Firstly, Jenness asked his participants to individually estimate the number of beans. He then gathered the group and got them to examine the contents. Finally, the researcher once again asked individuals for an estimate and observed that nearly all the individuals changed their original estimates to be closer to the group estimate, therefore showing a level of conformity.

Conformity is often described as behaving the same way as everyone else to fit in. While it often has a negative connotation, conformity is an interesting phenomenon that is present in all parts of human society and can be both good and bad. Conformity is a theme present throughout many literary works, and there have been countless studies on it and its effects on people. Some of the most interesting examples can be seen in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Lemming Condition, and the Milgram Experiment.

In 1951, Solomon Asch carried out several experiments on conformity. The aim of these studies was to investigate conformity in a group environment situation. The purpose of these experiments was to see if an individual would be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. Asch believed that conformity reflects on relatively rational process in which people are pressured to change their behaviour. Asch designed experiments to measure the pressure of a group situation upon an individual judgment. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can really play a big role in disbelieving our own senses.

Conformity is a form of social influence, when we conform we act and think like members of our group. Often people even alter or change their personal beliefs to match those around them. When we conform we feel pressured to fit in with others, to be a part of the majority. While we may still have contradicting beliefs towards things, we change our behaviors and actions to match what everybody else is

Conformity is a situation of changing one’s behavior in order to match the actions of the society around the person. The social influence cause people to agree or even behave like the majority of the people in the specific group so that the group can perceive them as normal. Solomon Asch (1956) was interested to know the act of people in conformity pressure. Because of that, he created an experiment to investigate the process by asking college students in a group of eight to match the lengths of different lines. The experiment shows that 95% of the students correctly match 12 lines without pressure of group. Ash repeats the experiment by changing the situation. The students now need to hear answers of five other people who are actually confederates

People don't always conform for the same reason's, in 1958 Kelman identified three main forms of conformity, each of which could produce conforming behaviour but in different ways. The first of these and the most superficial is Compliance: Going along with the majority in order to avoid rejection or in order to gain rewards such as social acceptance or approval. The distinguishing feature of compliance

Crutchfield, shares that conformity can be simply defined as yielding to group pressure which can take place as in many different forms, such as bullying,persuasion, teasing, criticism, etc. Conformity is also known as majority influence or group pressure (Crutchfield, 1955).

The behavioral pattern of conformity affected each of us at one time. It’s the unspoken rules of a group, and the most critical time is being a teenager. They have a willingness to please, and want to be a part of the popular group. Their behavior may not be appropriate by society standard, but because they want to fit in or belong, they may see it as the social norm. In any phases of life, a person’s own opinion may be an influence by those of groups. Especially if they are associated with university's scholars, baseball teams or any organization deals with social groups. In Dr. Solomon, Asch’s conformity experiments he used psychological terms, which conformity refers to a person’s predisposition. Meaning they would follow the unspoken

Conformity is a kind of social influence that occurs when an individual change his or her attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to match or imitate those of other people. Psychologist have conceptually split this of idea conformity into two major categories base on the social influences that causes them. The two categories consist of informational influence and normative influence. Informational influence occurs when one conforms to others because they believe that the group has accurate information that the person conforming does not have. Normative influence occurs when one conforms to others because one wants them to like and accept them.

Journal Entry #11 – Conformity Chapter 9 discusses many topics including conformity. Conformity is defined by the book as being one of the group and therefore avoiding being visibly different. It is human nature to for a person to want to be accepted by the group. Therefore it is completely natural to want to conform to the norms of the group. Several reasons exist for why someone would conform to group standards.

There is a stability or a certain balance linking Individuality and conformity and instead of attempting to go for one in an extreme, or just settling for the other, People should make a strenuous effort to find the equilibrium between the two. The movie”Dead Poets Society” is a great example of the consistent battle between Conformism and Individualism. The definition of of Conformity is “compliance with standards rules and laws /behavior in accordance with socially

A well known experiment that proves conformity is the Asch experiment that was conducted in the 1950s. Asch’s experiment involved a group of people, only one person in the group was actually a percipient in the experiment as the others had been told how to behave. The experiment involves the group viewing two sets of cards. One set of cards had one line and the other set of cards had three lines on. The subjects were asked which of the three lines matches the single line. The experiment starts out fine until most of the participants clearly get the answers wrong to see how the single subject reacts. The participant hears the others clearly giving the wrong answer but his opinion was influenced by them. Asch’s experiment proves that individuals are willing to ignore what they know as being right to give an incorrect answer to conform with the others in the group.

The article What is Conformity? By Kendra Cherry is about how society uses conformity to fit in and the different types of conformity. Conformity is to agree with or act like the rest of society, or behaving in a certain way in order to be accepted by a group/society. There can be numerous of influences that can make you conform such as informational influences and normative influences. Informational influence happens when people change their opinion just to be correct based on the opinion of people who are smarter or more informed. Normative influence happens when you want to avoid punishments. Not only are there many influences, there are also many types of conformity such as Normative conformity, informational conformity, identification,

In 1951, Solomon Asch's conformity experiment is now regarded as a classic experiment in social psychology, where the participants would conform to the behaviour of others in an unambiguous situation. Asch told naive participants were told they were participating in a simple ‘vision test’. The original experiment was conducted with 123 American male participants.

In pyschology conformity can be descibed as an indiviual’s tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he/she belongs to or wants to be apart of. Many psychologists including , Jenness (1932), Sherif (1935) both experimented in psychology, investigating conformity and group pressure. However, perhaps the most famous conformity experiment was done by Solomon Asch (1951) and his line judgment experiment. (McLeod 2007)