Margaret Drabble's Theory Of Human Conformity

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 refers to an individual’s behavior that is performed because of group pressure, even though that pressure might not involve a direct request. Many people want to think that they are conformist enough so that they are not looked upon as strange to others and nonconformist enough to demonstrate that they are capable of thinking by themselves. For many years, psychologists have been interested in human conformity. Usually when people are in groups, they behave according to how those in the group behave. That indicates that conformity can affect a person’s behavior and make a person do things that may be against their ethics, attitudes, and morals. The study of

In fact, this also applies to the situation of understanding what social conformity is. This subject has been around for centuries, forcing many to behave in a certain way that the society expects. The influence of peer pressure is still a topic has an impact to the world, especially the adolescents. The “[s]ocial psychologists have suggested that one core function of compliance and conformity is to maintain group harmony”(“Social Influence and the Brain:Persuasion, Susceptibility to Influence and Retransmission” Cascio,Scholz,Falk) and this applies to many individuals who value public opinions more than their own. They seek to be “good” people and make an effort to follow the trend of the crowd. More often than not, this also relates to the confidence level of an individual, “If those others agree with one’s beliefs, one gains confidence in them; if they disagree, one loses confidence” (“Conformity,” Levine). This is indeed what many people face today from all different phases of life. Daisy, one of the characters in the book The Great Gatsby, is a perfect example of a person soaked into social conformity. From the beginning of her marriage life with Tom to the end of the book, she progresses into immoral stages of life. Day after day she conforms herself into a world filled with corruptions, such as adultery and murder. Although, she is an adult, she is a character that is stuck in a stage that her age group have already

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

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

Asch since his experiments are what pioneered the study of conformity. His study is considered a classic, and most of conformity studies based their study off of Asch’s experiments. Asch made a group of white, male college students study two separated cards that contained lines. One card was the base line, and the subjects had to choose from three similar line on the second card that matched the first card. Asch made his subjects report their findings out loud to the rest of the other subjects in the room. In all of his experiments, all but one subject were confederates, and that was the majority the lone subject had to face. The majority answered incorrectly throughout the experiments as Asch instructed them to do, and he study the experimental subject to see if he will conform to the incorrect majority. In his first experiments, a group of 7 to 9 students was used. The second experiment tested for the number of opposing subjects needed to reach a set rate of conformity. The final experiment tested the rate of conformity of the experimental partner if he had a supporting partner. The results of the first experiment showed that “the misleading majority’s wrong judgment [made the experimental subjects answer incorrectly] in 36.8 percent of the selections” (Asch 20). This was very interesting, and the rest of the other experiments showed different numbers as well. It only took three opposing subjects to make the experimental subject conform at 31.8% and beyond three subjects did not change the rate (Asch 21). A supporting partner made the experimental subject rate of incorrect answers reduced by one-fourth (Asch 22). This led me to look at other studies that explored conformity with different age groups and using females instead of males. For example, Walker and Andrade found in their experiments “that conformity decreases with age from childhood to maturity in the Asch (1956) situation” (371). Children tend to

With this addiction would allow Asch to determine how the answers of the subject would change with the addition of peer pressure onto the real subject. The results of the experiment were interesting, which showed that peer pressure was a big influence on the answers given by the subjects. The results about the people giving an incorrect answer, one third of the real subjects also voiced an incorrect answer. The means that 75% of the subjects gave the wrong answer to at least one question, so there was no doubt that peer pressure can cause conformity. There was debate whether peer pressure can cause conformity because people did not believe the results and believe that the subjects were just being obedient. There were many other Asch Experiments that showed disobedient voices that difference to the results, so did the forcefulness of the actors. For example, one incorrect answer made by an actor made little difference to the answers, but the influence increased if two or more people disagreed. The results did not change much after this point because more actors made little difference. Also, the number of people in the group also made a

According to Aronson (1985), conformity is “a change in a person’s opinion or behaviour as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people”.

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

Conformity is adjusting your behavior, thoughts, and actions, to fit in to the norms and values of your society. Conformity is enforced on individuals from birth; starting with the primary influences of their parents and continues through out life being effected by school, peers, and the workplace. The Asch experiment describes conformity because in most cases the people involved in the experiment were “willing to discount their own perceptions rather than buck a group on consensus.” I feel as though this attempt to conform is not as uncommon as people portray it to be. Many teens and other young adults tend to not stand by their own morals and values and sacrifice their own identity to conform to others around them, usually to those “so called” peers.

The ASCH experiment demonstrated that humans conform easily, and it is scary to know that. Humans do not want to feel left out or alone. In groups or large numbers of people, we

We can see from these forms of conformity that people act in accordance with others for many different reasons and also that conformity isn't necessarily a bad thing. However our likelihood of conforming to others is partly dependant on our own opinion of ourselves as well as other people's demands on us. There have been many studies over the years by various psychologists, including: Triplett (1898) and his "fishing reel" experiment, Sherif (1936) and the "Autokinetic effect" experiment involving the various moving lights,

Some factors that are found to increase conformity include: attractiveness of others in the group, complexity or difficulty of the task, and group cohesiveness. Asch created this experiment to deepen our understanding of the human psyche. This look into the human mind has shown us that we look for acceptance in other human beings. When under an anonymous shroud, the amount of correct responses increase. That being said, if there is no risk in being thought of as dumb or idiotic according to the choice, people are more likely to go through with their first choice

and I agree on the fact that, “Our desire to conform is greater than our respect of objective facts.” A prime example of the impact of conformity can be seen in peer pressure. Peer pressure is defined as the influence from members of one’s peer group due to impulse. Peer pressure can range from positive

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)