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To what extent do we conform? Here is a quiz for you based on the famous and ingenious conformity experiment by Solomon Asch in 1951 to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
The research involved groups of college students with 8 members each. Each member viewed a card with a line on it, followed by another with three lines labeled A, B, and C (see figure). One of these lines was the same as that on the first card, and the other two lines were clearly longer or shorter (i.e., a near-100% rate of correct responding was expected). Each participant was then asked to say aloud which line matched the length of that on the first card.
What a ridiculously straightforward task! Wouldn’t everyone get the right answer immediately?
Here is the ingenious design of the experiment. 7 of these 8 people were actors, who were given detailed instructions on how to behave, and one was the innocent “subject”, whose behaviour was the focus of the research. For easy comprehension, let us call this subject Mickey.
All actors were introduced to Mickey as other random participants. The group was seated such that Mickey always responded last (Poor Mickey!)The exercise was repeated 18 times with each group, with different cards.
First two rounds, all the actors gave the right answer, and so did Mickey.
Third round, all the actors gave the same wrong response.
Can you imagine Mickey’s confusion? Do you think Mickey would hold on to the right answer? Or change his to the wrong one?
The exercise was made confusing for Mickey with the actors sometimes giving the wrong and sometimes giving the right answer. Overall, in 12 out of the 18 rounds, the actors gave the same wrong answer.
Over the 12 trials, 75 % of the participants conformed at least once.
Asch put it this way: "That intelligent, well-meaning, young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."
Asch performed several variations of this experiment. Can you guess the answers and respond with your comments?
· If one of the seven people gave the right answer, and six others gave the wrong answer, what do you guess would change in the outcome?
· If the group size was three, instead of 8 what would change?
· If the group size was 20, what could change?
· If the group had to give their answer in writing, and not verbally, what could change?
· What would change if the subject went first?
Quite interesting isn’t it! What implications can you infer for psychological safety? www.navgati.in/transactional-analysis/
leadership
To what extent do we conform? Here is a quiz for you based on the famous and ingenious conformity experiment by Solomon Asch in 1951 to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
The research involved groups of college students with 8 members each. Each member viewed a card with a line on it, followed by another with three lines labeled A, B, and C (see figure). One of these lines was the same as that on the first card, and the other two lines were clearly longer or shorter (i.e., a near-100% rate of correct responding was expected). Each participant was then asked to say aloud which line matched the length of that on the first card.
What a ridiculously straightforward task! Wouldn’t everyone get the right answer immediately?
Here is the ingenious design of the experiment. 7 of these 8 people were actors, who were given detailed instructions on how to behave, and one was the innocent “subject”, whose behaviour was the focus of the research. For easy comprehension, let us call this subject Mickey.
All actors were introduced to Mickey as other random participants. The group was seated such that Mickey always responded last (Poor Mickey!)The exercise was repeated 18 times with each group, with different cards.
First two rounds, all the actors gave the right answer, and so did Mickey.
Third round, all the actors gave the same wrong response.
Can you imagine Mickey’s confusion? Do you think Mickey would hold on to the right answer? Or change his to the wrong one?
The exercise was made confusing for Mickey with the actors sometimes giving the wrong and sometimes giving the right answer. Overall, in 12 out of the 18 rounds, the actors gave the same wrong answer.
Over the 12 trials, 75 % of the participants conformed at least once.
Asch put it this way: "That intelligent, well-meaning, young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."
Asch performed several variations of this experiment. Can you guess the answers and respond with your comments?
· If one of the seven people gave the right answer, and six others gave the wrong answer, what do you guess would change in the outcome?
· If the group size was three, instead of 8 what would change?
· If the group size was 20, what could change?
· If the group had to give their answer in writing, and not verbally, what could change?
· What would change if the subject went first?
Quite interesting isn’t it! What implications can you infer for psychological safety? www.navgati.in/transactional-analysis/