and an experiment is not public opinion pull it examines behavior under the pressure of
social forces as the experiment of solomon ash reveals
experiment you'll be taking part in today involves the perception of length of lines
as you can see here i have number of cards
and on each card there are several lines
it has a very simple one you to look at the final that and determine
which of the three lines and the right is able to wouldn't like alright will
proceed in this order
you'll only one of the people in the group is a real subject fifth person
with the white t shirt
the others are confederates of the experimenter and of internal to give wrong answers on
some of the trials
the experiment begins uneventful e is subjects give their judgements
so
two
so
sorry
or
great
right
but on the third trial something happens so
so
two
two
two
the subject did nice the evidence of its own eyes and used to group influence
i found subjects when along with the group on thirty seven percent of the critical
trials
but he found through interview was that they one along with the group for different
reasons
one
one they must be right there for them in one of one
the subject yielding is based on a distortion of as judgement in genuinely believes that
the group is correct
one
one
one
two
one
so
so
two
i is true
in this case the subject nosy is right but goes along to avoid the discomfort
of disagreement with the group here the distortion is that the level of is response
two
so
q
so
in the previous experiment the naive subjects alone against the group
in this variation s gave the naive subject to partner you're seated in the third
position will also gives the correct response
while
one
so
one
two
with a partner yielding drops to only five percent of the critical trials compared to
thirty seven percent without a partner
although subjects report one thing good feeling for the part no they typically denial that
he played a role in their own independence
the partnership variation you shows that much of the power of the group came not
merely from its numbers but from the unanimity of its opposition
when that unanimity is punctured the groups powers greatly reduced
sometimes we go along with the group because what they say convinces us they are
right this is called informational conformity
but sometimes we can form because we are apprehensive that the group of disapproval for
your deviant
this is called normative conformity
the strength of the norman a factor is shown in another variation carried out by
a
in this variation the subject just all the because the other rival at you would
have to write is a answers
subjects in this private response experimenter exposed to the same amount of misleading information as
other subjects but they are removed from any possible criticism by the group
one
and this enormously reduces the pressure to conform
conformity drops by two thirds
ashes experiment is a classic it reveals a people will deny what they see and
submit a group pressure
allows us not only to observe conformity to study the conditions that increase or reduce
its occurrence