Asch Conformity Research Paper

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.

Having read of Asch’s and Miligrams experiments in the past I still find it surprising how many of the participants obeyed or conformed to social pressures. Each experiment essentially comes to the same conclusion that people tend to obey authoritative figures and conform when they are under pressure. Although not all participants obeyed or conformed in each experiment a large majority did. Asch’s experiment seemed very simple, guessing which line was longer, but evolved into something very complex in regards to uncovering how people conform to certain situations. One would assume that although others may choose a line that is obviously incorrect the subject would choose the correct answer and stick to it. People in general conform to all types of situations, whether in school, home or work.

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.

Asch’s experiment was performed in 1951 and is now a classic experiment in psychology. Asch asked individuals a simple question and a high percentage answered correctly. Then Asch placed a participant in a room with seven actors who had predetermined incorrect answers. When asked in front of the group, 75% of people would give incorrect answers clearly because of they conformed to the actors around them. Asch then concluded that it is natural for one to conform to society in order to fit

The study of social psychology, particularly conformity, is very difficult to conduct both ethically and accurately in order to be able to obtain useful results. In the studies done by Milgram and Zimbardo, ethics were definitely breached but to what extent were these experiments useful, and which one offered the most insight into human behaviour?

Asch got 123 student volunteers to participate in wat they thought was a vision test but was actually an experiment on conformity. All but one of the participants in each group was really a confederate and the real purpose of the experiment was to see how the acual participant would react to the behaviour of the confederates.

Because humans crave attention of others, they live their life and conform to whatever the majority of the people around them says. Asch’s Conformity Experiment, which was when they hired eight actors and one test subject and gave them all a test and told the eight actors to say the wrong answer, they found that the test subject would usually conform to the majority vote even if it was wrong. This showed us that people would usually conform to the majority answer on a test, even if it was wrong. Even in high school, students conform to make themselves look cool and conform to things even if they know it’s wrong. Asch’s experiment and american high schools prove to us that humans don’t want to stand out and we just want to fit in and get attention.

Conformity – Asch conformity studies examined independence and conformity among individuals in a group setting.

The acts of conforming and obeying shape us significantly, whether we are conscious of it or not. They do so in ways that psychologists Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram attempt to explain through their research. Asch touches base on the topic of conformity and discusses the ways in which group behaviors and social norms can influence the decisions an individual makes. On the other hand, Milgram’s focus is on obedience, and he studied it by measuring average, everyday people and their willingness to obey authority figures, even if it involves actions that go against their personal beliefs and morals. They have provided evidence through experiments, and with this information, it becomes easier to understand the world of politics, and how these

On average, about thirty-two percent of the participants conformed to pick the blatantly wrong answer and over the twelve trials seventy-five percent of the students conformed at least once, and twenty-five didn’t conform at all. Many of the participants afterward admitted they conformed to give the wrong answer because they wanted to avoid being ridiculed and some thought the group really was correct. Is was the results of this experiment that led Asch to conclude that whenever people conform it’s to either fit in or because they believe that since they’re in the minority their conclusion is incorrect. Another influential experiment concerning conformity is the Stanford Prison Experiment. Conducted in 1973, Phillip Zimbardo wanted to determine if brutality in prison systems was due to the

Solomon Asch 's (1951) conformity experiment is the study of people adapting their behaviours in order to follow the social normalities. This experiment entails a group of people who are actors and know about the experiment, and one person who is unknowing of the experiment, which are all in the same room. The group is shown a pair of cards; card A has a line on the card, and card B has three lines varying in length on the card, the similarities of the lines are obvious. The group individually, saying out loud picks one of the three lines on card B that matches the length of the line on card A. Everybody picks the correct line, this happens for a few rounds, then when shown another pair of cards the first actor chooses the wrong line on card B. The rest of the actors choose the same line the first actor chose, this tests to see if the unknowing participant will choose the same answer as the group (McLeod, 2008). The person who is unknowing of the

The Asch Experiments were a series of studies that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. The Asch experiment was concocted by Solomon Asch and was a famous psychological experiment that was designed to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. The experiment also shows that one voice can make a difference amongst others. The experiments were made up of “visions tests” where study participants were found to be more likely to conform to obviously wrong answers if first given by other participants. In the case study, the group was consists of all but one person that was working for Asch (confederates) to test how the remaining student would react to their wrong answer.

Solomon Asch was a psychologist that conduced numerous expirments designed to illustrate the increasing conformity within social groups. The experiments also invesigated the effect the number of people present within the group had one the conformity rate. Asch hypothesized, “ that the majority of the people would not conform to something obviosly wrong; however, when surrounded by (other) individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, 75% of them(the participant) will conform to the groups answer” (Watzlawick 1976)

In 1951 Solomn Asch, a Polish psychologist, administered an experiment to consider the effect to which social pressures from a majority group would have on an individual to conform. Solomn had a staged group of nine people and a single real participant take a visual line comparison test, in which participants would choose which line out of three matched the comparison line best. After running twelve trials, Solomn found that around seventy-five percent of real participants would knowingly conform at least once to the majority group that would always pick the wrong line. Solomn was able to conclude that people conform for two main reasons: either to fit in, known as normative influence, or because they believe they are less informed than the