Ethics
The investigation followed all five ethical guidelines; right to withdrawal, confidentiality, accurate reporting, deception and informed consent. From the beginning of the experiment the right to withdrawal was mentioned a few times to ensure participants had an open choice to participate in the experiment or not. All participants were reminded anonymous through the duration of the experiment, the participants were give a three digit number to be identified, this number would be used instead of any personal information that belongs to the participant. Accurate reporting was reported in the raw data section which then was sorted out into graphs and tables to ensure the participants weren't using raw data in the write up. Deception was
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Test-retest reliability is when the experiment is measured the same test which is conducted twice or over a period of time The scores from test 1 and test 2 can be used to compare results as well as times. This was used in the experiment by Group A was tested first and then Group B followed but Group B was supplied with Group As results.
The type of validity that was used in the investigation was external validity. External validity is the process of examining results and using the results to see if they connect to any possible relationships. The experiment used this method as the results from Group A and B were connected to see how many siblings a participant has and to see how social conformity connects to the relationships in each household.
Conclusion
In conclusion this experiment helped determine where social conformity is found on a basic level. From the results on figure one the experiment did not support the hypotheses although it does not mean that the information isn't helpful to any future research or experiments. In future reference this experiment could be improved by more detailed questions about the participants home life as this would help the researcher to gain a more accurate understanding of social conformity in larger and smaller
So they were not certain about the movement they observed and so would not feel confident about insisting that their observations were wholly correct. When they heard other reported judgements they may have decided to go along with them. The problem with this study, for understanding of conformity, as one aspect of social psychology is that it is a total artifical experimental situation - there isn’t even a right answer. Requested reports of imaginary movements of a stationary spot of light in a darkened room when alone, or with two others, hardly reflects situations we come accross in our every day
Test-retest reliability is conducting the same test with the same respondents at different moments of time. For example, a group of participants is given a personality test and then are given the same is tested at a later time, maybe a month or year later (Kline, 2005).
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
Psychologists have long wondered about the power of conformity and social norms on human behavior, whether or not an individual will act outside of their beliefs in order to fit in. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch decided to research this question. However, instead of researching vague concepts, such as attitudes, ethics, morals, and belief systems, he chose to focus on perceptual conformity, the extent to which humans tend to conform with one another’s perceptions of the world. Asch chose to study a simple visual comparison that could easily he and other researchers could easily construct and repeat in a laboratory setting. He theorized, along with many other researchers of his time, that one could manipulate another’s behavior by applying group
The experiment conducted by students in a social psychology class, used the same method that Milgram used to show how people conform to a group. The study found similar results to Milgram’s study, although it was conducted on a smaller campus with less people. Being that the outcome of the experiment was similar to the results of most other studies on conformity, it reinforced the idea that a group easily influences people. Based on the results of the previous studies mentioned above, it was hypothesized that more students and faculty passing by a crowd would conform when the crowd was
Group conformity is defined as the way people change their behavior or character when influenced by other people or by a certain social environment. A basic example of it will be a teenager whom friends are all smirking a cigarette, fear of not being part of the group our teenager will at his turn light a cigarette. Conformity in a group is in way copying what other members are doing to integrate the group, one can act totally out of character just for the group conformity. In this essay we will analyze how people are affected by group conformity and what kind of changes some are willing to make in their characters or behavior. We will also analyze how can group conformity be expressed in our society. Finally we will analyze what statistics and scientific research is telling us about group conformity.
First and foremost the participants must be voluntary. In all ethical research when conducting research there must be willing participants. Research has shown that when participants volunteer they shouldn’t feel coerced, threatened or bribed into participation. Second, informed consent must be described at the onset of the study. Participants are told about the procedures and informed of any potential risks; there also should be documented in written form, ensuring the participant know about the experiment and can make informed decisions about whether or not they want to participate. Meanwhile, this can present problems in cases where telling the participants the necessary details about the experiment might unduly influence their responses or behaviors in the study. However, it is stated in this article which allows in certain instances, but only if the study would be impossible to conduct without the use of deception, if the research will provide some sort of valuable insight and if the subjects will be debriefed and informed about the study's true purpose after the data has been collected searchers Must Maintain Participant Confidentiality. Finally, while guidelines can provide some ethical standards for research, each study can pose different unique challenges. Likewise, confidentiality is a part of any ethical research. Participants need to be guaranteed that
Further, these experiments were conducted at a time when the psychological community did not have stringent ethical guidelines. Since then, there has been a greater emphasise on protecting human participants, culminating in the APA ethical guidelines which
The causes of conformity among individuals have long been debated and researched in recent decades. It is for this reason that conformity is an intriguing psychological concept. It causes sound-minded individuals to go against their best judgement, to engage in behaviour which they usually would not engage in, even accept and welcome an idea they internally disagree with, all in order to not be a deviant from the group. It is thus interesting to look at the factors which cause people to conform, to do what they see others doing, to rely on the judgements of the group, and to ignore their own senses and perceptions. It is the reasons for the individual's desire to conform that I will be discussing in this paper.
Conformity is a phenomenon of society that penetrates all social levels, ages and genders. Conformity is the ability to adjust your behaviour or standards to fit in with a social group, anxiety could be felt by a person if they feel they are different or stand out from the group (Meunier & Rule, 1967). The study of social psychology allows psychologists to study the way individuals interact to others in groups of any size. The study of conformity will be analysed in this essay in particular Asch’s study into majority influence described as behaviours and beliefs of a larger group influencing the behaviour and beliefs of a smaller group. Additionally, Moscovici’s study into minority influences is described as the ideas and beliefs of a smaller group influencing the behaviour and beliefs of a larger group. Analysing both studies and also the details of Moscovici’s theory a conclusion will be written.
Validity is the degree to which the test measures what it is set out to measure (Reshow & Rosenthal, 2008).The types of validity includes “construct, content, convergent or discriminant, criterion, external, face, internal, and statistical” (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 2008, p. 125). It is important to distinguish the validity of the research outcome because it cannot contain any room for error, nor pending variable without an applicable explanation. Validity is not verified by a statistic; rather by a uniform of examiner that reflects exemplify knowledge, and relationship among the test, and the performance it is projected to measure. Therefore, it is important for a test to be applicable in order for the product to securely, and correctly apply, and translated.
The human society contains certain cultural and social structures. Throughout the lecture, means of cultural norms and structures take the role within groups, or clusters of individuals. In this act, the development of group norms and conformity begins to cultivate. Professor Terry reveals that categorizing norms can also provide a way for students to understand or interpret a certain situation (Terry, 2017). This brings in the factor of conformity, which is viewed to social psychologist as placing impact on social value. This is not seen as one-sided; instead means of positive or negative attributes can occur (Terry, 2017). Conformity is a very common form of social influence. It is when members of a group begin to act or even deliberate
Another well known experiment that confirms conformity is the Zimbardo experiment that was conducted in 1971. Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment to find out how different roles can affect human behaviour. In the experiment the volunteers randomly got given the role of being ‘the guards’ or the of ‘the prisoners’. The prisoners were arrested by the police department and got locked up in a makeshift jail. They were treated like real prisoners in chains, their possessions got taken away from them, striped naked and even got called by their ID number only. The guards were dressed in a khaki
Conformity, the most popular form of social influence, has been described as the ability of oneself to change their core behavior so as to have the same response as others and to fit in the norms set up by society (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). With a view to understanding what conformity really is, Asch decided to carry out a relatively simple experiment where the participants had to undergo a visual perception test (Asch, 1951). The participants had two cards respectively on which there was a line of basic length and on the other cards were three other lines of three different lengths; the participants had to choose which of the three lines matched with that of basic lengths. What the participants were unaware of was that out of the groups of 7 or 9 that was predetermined, only the participant was the real subject of the study while the others were associates of the investigator who were asked to give wrong answers on purpose in more than 50% of the case. It was made sure that the real subject only announced his verdict prior to the last respondent (Asch,
The second rule for conducting an ethical research project is, the right to be protected from harm or discomfort. In this study there wasn’t really anything that could be harming someone, but in the case that they felt uncomfortable, a student could just not complete the survey.