Asch Conformity Experiment

[Macauley86]

And can also think of another one that started in 1973.

[Macauley86]

I could think of one moral issue our society is facing today where this experiment applies to a T at mass level.

[Abnormaldiversity]

Even if the other dissenter, instead of giving the right answer, gives a *different* wrong answer (eg correct is 2, everyone says 1, dissenter says 3) it has the same effect of reducing conformity. It's not having someone who agrees with you that matters, it's seeing diversity of opinion.

[LifePsyop]

This is modus operandi of the Media. All the experts on TV says America must do 'this'. So, we must do 'this'. Or everyone on TV says 'this' is happening, so 'this' must be happening.

[JohnRobertPosey]

I should try this on the Occupy protesters in my backyard!

[sarahscally2010]

This just happened to me.........

[LovecraftianToenail]

I'm getting serious 1984 vibes from this video.

There is no war in Eastasia.

[TheWizardWeiss]

it's funny how he reacts when he sees they give the wrong answer, he kinda of wants to give the right answer , but at the same time he denies it , and go with the others , look at his face , lol he check everybody else , to be sure of what he's doing , I think I would give the right answer , but there is also too much pressure around , so if there are like 5 people and all of them answer the question with the same answer , and you notice it's wrong , it's still seems right to believe in them...

[brownsugarsinger]

1:47 gets me every time!! hahahahaha!

[pr9301]

Is this video a rereation of the experiment. They look and sound like bad actors.

[jas16899]

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

[circusoflife]

ufos, crop circles, alt views on religion, society

[Karmathejedi1701]

‎"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." — Plato

[SolitaryCZ]

@ILikeBeingBad Probably because you knew the group and did not feel the pressure and was not afraid "to be wrong" and disagree (I mean to be right, of course and say your own opinion) ... if it was... let's say a job interview/test, I believe you would probably act different.

[DocNitro74]

Captain Jean Luc Picard would never fall for that shit!!!

[GreeenBaron]

@DocNitro74 How many lights do you see Picard ?!?

[DocNitro74]

@GreeenBaron YES! That is exactly what I was referring to...and the funny thing is that episode was probably inspired by the Asch experiment. Now we have a strange loop.

[HarryBlufc91]

Everyone says that 911 was terrorists so I say that 911 was terrorists! B

[3acurr]

@ILikeBeingBad Thanks I will definately check it out!

[Sovember]

This stuff is mind fuck.

[3acurr]

Im interested to kno if they ever did this study with women I wonder if there would be a different result or if the amount of conformity would stay constant.

[aidenmccloskey]

i'm quite a stubborn person. i always have been. it would take a while before i was finally manipulated by the others into saying the wrong answer. either that or i'd get very frustrated and i'd lose my temper.

[villeppi]

And thus Facebook was born.

"I gotta join. Everyone else is joining."

[Dgizmokid]

lol i saw this in classs the other day , its for my psychology 13 class. social psycology. my teacher is awesome. im watching it to show how all people do this to an extend..she never believes anything i say cause im a supposed know it all. im really not .. i just know about certain or wierd things. hahaha to her huh?

[beauzer36]

Screw the group. This is why I have trouble in life but I'd rather be alone than stupid.

[janistonbest]

@beauzer36

couldn't agree more

[RainbowManification]

Proof that the majority is not necessarily correct

[lothor1234]

And thus religion is born.

[ichibakudan]

@lothor1234 ahh i wish your statement wasn't true.

[beanothedon]

The art of Mainstream Media.

[Mubarak635]

I also have pressure on whether to be a teacher or a psychologist! They are both very fun but I am sort of worried that people might think me a strict, nerdy type if I'm a teacher, just like the moral in this video. What this video is saying that people are afraid of being themselves.

[LSSupra]

@Mubarak635 Be a psychology teacher :) I know a teacher who is a family friend and he is cool. People thinking you're strict can be a good thing.

[Mubarak635]

@LSSupra Is that even possible? Wouldn't I have to be a professor then? But that'd be so awesome!

[bensley56]

"People will deny what they see, and submit to group pressure". = Humanity in a nutshell.

[jdm405unleashed]

@bensley56 Word.

[dondopa]

@bensley56 This is How Religion was able to make us retards for so many years in the dark ages. poor Galileo, Poor Copernicus......

[mubudubum]

@dondopa Your right! This is how religion was able to do that. However this is also how evolution and other false teachings have been taught and widely accepted throughout the world." its in the text books and everyone at school will think I'm stupid if i don't agree and the teacher will fail me if I don't give the answers the text provides so I guess we are all monkeys. lets not question the pros and cons, lets just listen to what everyone is saying instead." religion has a new face my friend.

[nhlalwenhlezondo]

This is why so many people drink, lawls!

[dondopa]

@nhlalwenhlezondo and smoke pot

[badmantra]

This "experiment", if it is one, does not take into consideration the added element of camera and editing. Is this supposed to prove that people are susceptible to cults or that some men don't express themselves very well.

I think "cult investigation" is a business like any other and like many business it is promoted by FEAR. Much like a cult actually. Isn't that Ironic? Well i'm told a sense of irony is diminished in cult psychology, so I guess that is reassuring.

[graziek]

someone knows if the tester is the true Solomon Asch in this video??? because color television was created on 1953, Asch experiment was test in 1956... this video have a great video quality and persons are 70's look... what do you think about???

[graziek]

Asch is a fucking genius

[ToxicOdiousOne]

I always believe I the individual am right and the group is wrong. Bandwagon appeal? Doesn't work on me. I am capable of independant rational thought. I am not a machine or a member of a lynch mob. I don't conform to group think.

[aikido7]

@ToxicOdiousOne We're all unique--just like everyone else.

[piperalways]

where can I find the original lines?

[bjjolley]

This isn't just employed by media. You will find this in every church.

[newbetterandhappy]

The Corporate Media would rather feed their own greed. There in the business of convincing us to act in their selfish sociopathic interest. Haliburton used defective cement in both the Gulf spill and an Australian spill, and bought a clean up company a week before it. BP used toxic Corexit to make the Oil sink to the bottom, God help anyone who eats shellfish that the Government has called "safe". I suggest people look at the Milgram experiment in the sidebar to see how dangerous the con is.

[TheUFOnetwork]

MS KNACK IS HOT

[setherial666]

Hah! The description!

[arnar36]

all in the society is based on this principle .... 

[BBthzPrisonerOfWar]

this one way how religion get their momentum

[Qbendanny]

Ask a Cuban political prisoner to take part in this experiment. See what you get.

[hughtub]

This is one reason why universal suffrage doesn't work.

[TheWhiteRabbit1990]

@owl235

This experiment has been done many times and no not with the subject 2 rows away from the board. And even if he was he still knows the right answer. How do we know this? The first couple times he answers correctly. Once everyone else changed their answers he still gave the correct one for a short while. And the control test where he is asked to write his answers instead of say them aloud they give the correct answer independent of the group. The video is not misleading in the least.

[TheWhiteRabbit1990]

@owl235

The point of the line was that it was an OBVIOUS wrong that the guy went along with. What happens when it's not an obvious wrong. Like the earth being 6000 years old. Or the jews are the cause of the problems. When the right answer isn't staring you in the face you go with the majority poll. That's all. Whats more likely that 80% believe in god and got it wrong? Once again when the answer isn't obvious.....

[owl235]

@TheWhiteRabbit1990

Three comments:

a) Two examples don't show that something is "typically" true.

b) Single individuals are wrong much more often than large groups. (Do you think it will be difficult to come up with examples of individuals being wrong?)

c) My comment was about *the Asch experiment*. The *Asch exp.* doesn't show that majorities are unreliable, since the majority's actual opinion in the experiment was 100% reliable. (Individuals were 99% reliable.)

[TheWhiteRabbit1990]

@owl235

I can't quite name everything in 500 characters. More than what 90% of the world is religious. About 67% of people reject evolution, 57% reject the big bang. If you live in america then you believe 18yo's is the correct age for consent, because it is the law and everyone you are raised with believes it. If you live in the UK you believe 16 is the correct age because that is the law and you believe it. As to my original point, you don't need money for the majority to be wrong.

[help4343]

@TheWhiteRabbit1990

If you live in america then you believe 18yo's is the correct age for consent, because it is the law and everyone you are raised with believes it. "

Wrong, the age of consent is 17 in more states than it is 18. In some states it is 16.

[HealthySkeptic]

I saw that there were 127 Thumbs Up, and only 2 Thumbs Down, so I clicked Thumbs Up.

[RawDangerMusic]

God doesn't exist.

Err... I mean 2

[kamikazewatermelon12]

man last part really made the experiment

[jackieblum14]

love it!

[NisseHult101]

Very interesting video! Thanks for posting.

[yahooriffic]

I wonder how this test would fare in Asian societies. They are collectivist and highly conformative.

We prize individuality in the West, and they prize conformity.

I would think that one would see a much higher relationship on test of conformity for most Asian cultures.

[howcynicalofme]

@yahooriffic

nah, go to countries like korea. not all are like that.

[DjDedan]

@yahooriffic i think we say we prize individuality but this test proves we don't really. A lot of this may have to do with deep ingrained survival instincts... not cultural frameworks...

[vandalizer32]

@EsquinaBranca congrats

[lygophile]

*slurp, slurp, slurp*

that's the sound of me taking in information. ilove it. everything i've always been telling people in a bitesized video.

i just HAVE to know what would happen if the "partner" would not respond to the glances and nods but instead ignores the subject.

for the record i hate normative conformaty stronger then anything.

[BruceBoppoTiemann]

"for the record i hate normative conformaty stronger then anything."

You're just saying that because everyone else says that. 

(Joking.)

[lygophile]

lol. yeah, nothing's richer of irony than the popularity of being different.

"conformaty", "then"... see? i don't even conform to rules of grammar!

[Uvissiet]

fMRI studies have shown that when we trust our eyes and minds, the posterior of the brain (where the visual cortex is) will activate. But when we go against the group, it doesn't, but the amygdala (negative emotion) and the right caudate nucleus (social modulation) do.

There's some psychological physiology to explain that we conform because not conforming is actually painful.

[woollster00]

i think it hurts us socially because people don't want to look stupid when they are the minority.

[Uvissiet]

The key to my post was "hurts". The brain literally registers going against the grain as a painful event.

[vengencefrom1979]

years ago when researching the asch experiment was popular i didnt go along because i was a non-conformist. waaaaaaaaaa. if only i had known!

[aikido7]

This is the kind of stuff that needs to be on the news 24/7

[yahooriffic]

Great point!

Imagine if just one violent news story every night was replaced with some interesting research or discovery!

[shuttervox]

@aikido7 So, is thumbs-upping a post because lots of other people have already done so a point in case? :p

[aikido7]

@shuttervox Exactly! It's like after high school finding a bunch of people, dressing like them and following them around!

[aikido7]

@aikido7 PS--unless you were actually taught in high school to listen, read and make up your own mind first!

[abram730]

@aikido7 This is the news 24/7. Think about it.

[aikido7]

@abram730 IYou are right--I should have posted what I REALLY think:

critical thinking, good communication skills and respect for others and their opinions should best be taught at HOME,

THEN reinforced by schools and culture.

[abram730]

@aikido7 I found my critical think to be incompatible with school. Critical thinking generally resulted in disciplinary action.. The same is true of culture. How does culture react to those who ask questions about cultural preconceptions or presuppositions.

example

How did culture react to those who claimed that blacks were human and thus entitle to the same rights as whites?

[aikido7]

@abram730

When people are raised to communicate skillfully, to accept and give criticism without anger or insensitivity, when people realize that we can no longer be passengers on the earth anymore. For the first time in the long course of human history, we are all realizing that we are not passengers. We're all crew.

Culture reacts to questioning by evolving to the extent that the answers are lived out in the new culture to produce more questioning.

[aikido7]

@abram730 says: How did culture react to those who claimed that blacks were human and thus entitle to the same rights as whites?

______________________________­_______________

Talk to Abraham Lincoln or George Bush. MLK Jr. or David Duke. We humans are always afraid of "the other." We peek thru the curtains at the neighbors, we often make friends slowly, we are not disposed to immediately leap into the stranger's lap. The way to destroy the stranger is to befriend him/her.

[newbetterandhappy]

@aikido7 That's exactly why it isn't. The Corporate Media are in the business of distorting the news to better fit the sociopathic greed of the corporations they own. In the Gulf , BP put very toxic Coerexit to make the oil sink out of sight, while Haliburton used defective cement. If we're to survive,WE NEED TO EACH BE A NEWS OUTLET!

[aikido7]

@newbetterandhappy When we learn to feel instead of watch, when the Western world begins to use its heart instead of its head, when we start learning from Third World cultures about seeing things in other ways besides either/or thinking, seeing value instead of price and quantity, then greed will no longer "work." It's happening now: more and more young kids go traveling and text around the world than ever before. We are building the new society inside the shell of the old. Join others!

[ritter89]

@aikido7 The media (news) relies on these innate human tendencies to stay in business. Most of our beliefs are based on group conformity. Even our purchasing choices are based on group dynamics. The anti smoking paranoia in the US is an example of group thinking. Nobody ever questions the studies that altered the laws about smoking in bars and so forth. Same goes for fear of terrorism despite the fact that most of us stand a better chance of being struck by lightning

[graziek]

@aikido7 then everybody can understand the importance of political social mass influence...

[natedaug1]

@aikido7 The news is its own form of brainwashing.

[LOLWTFBBQz]

@aikido7 its known by everyone anyway, everyones first cig.. beer../ect anything they never wanted to do is all people who have a loss of identity and they conform to others to fit in... sad stuff =/

[redbarn012]

@aikido7 The NEWS is, by definition, at least supposed to be about things which are new. This is 50+ years old. So, not news. (Also not anything you shouldn't already more or less know without an experiment.)

[aikido7]

@redbarn012 What you are saying is NEWS to me. Haw haw.

[snorhoofd]

So glad that I study psychology. Interesting material!

[misstee101]

Asch can be a amusing teacher!

[immortalass]

This is a cool video. Apart from the actual information content, those clothes and hair are bloody hilarous

[RickyCisco]

This is the test you have to take to be a cop, soldier or government employee. If you don't go along with the group you fail.

[src105]

false.

[jErSeY027]

can this be done with only one or two confederates (accomplices)???

[Uvissiet]

@jErSeY027 It can, but conformity wouldn't be as stable. Social Impact Theory states that the size of the group has a huge impact on conformity when 2-5 people are added, but it tapers off after that and even falls a bit. Asch himself confirmed that in 1955.

So adding a confederate to a group of 2 makes a big difference, but to a group of 6 or more makes little difference and may even bring comfort to the subject, perhaps making him hopeful for an ally or an alternate subject.

[HighlandFreePress]

I am not brainwashed. You are.

[Ahavah8Ahavah]

This is a great video.

Stand on the truth - never waver.

[hypnofan35]

It is so easy to get sucked into "winning" or "social success bias". Believing is basically biasing reality at work. Unless a person gives up their bias, they will never be able to analyze beyond their bias. Bias movement creates a unidimentional conceptual environment. It is very difficult to break free of bias and biasing situations, because biased people hold great disdain for truth or resonance. Beware of your hierarchal tendencies, because while success waits it will murder truth.

[hypnofan35]

Social biasing kills brain cells folks. Religion is a kind of social biasing toward hierarchal interpretations of what "God" is. God or Jesus is actually a more resonant interplay of forces, and tends to diffuse hierarchal bias. People tend to conform to success or threat bias. Too much bias can "crack" a person's sense of reality. You normally cannot get much actual truth from a group of "fortress mentality people". "Big winner people" have very little interest in anything but "big winning".

[uncleardegree]

Simple brainwashing

[samueldrdr]

Damn! This is GOOD!

Simple brainwashing.

Send it to people you think need to see this. Pretty much every one thought ;-)

Spread like a wind, like a wind

5/5

peace

[keyhole911]

Great!

9/11 was NO inside Job!!!

two,...two...two....two....

Sheep do not place/ask questions,

therefore they are sheep...

Thanks 4 the upload!

[help4343]

@keyhole911

You probably think 9/11 is an inside job because you are conforming to some conspiracy video you saw. Now you are judging others that have a different opinion than you.

[keyhole911]

@help4343 ... I don`t think!!!! .... I KNOW THAT 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB! ....and I am judging no one, capiche? Physics and Mathematics can not lie!!! ...

[ClockLock]

@keyhole911, then why do physicists and mathematicians agree that the way 9/11 happened made sense? The Pancake Theory, the Melting Metal theory, and the rest of that does not make any sense.

[keyhole911]

@ClockLock 1523 Architects...... they are all crazy ? e911truth (Dot)org

[aldona99]

When was this experiment carried out? Looks like late 70's maybe.

I especially found the information written in the top right-hand corner interesting... You see it almost everywhere these days. Its also a fine art of trickery, to make us "conform" if we have a goal, be it only to upload a video on youtube. :-)

[mvpool]

the sheeple effect

[MoJoSB]

Love how everyone has to make this a political thing...

Just goes to show you how well this group think works...

[ShinyChuck]

Group Think, just as in man-made global warming

[JoeTriple07]

In Orwells 1984, Winston was asked how many fingers he sees and he thinks to himself I see three, but I know I am suppose to see four, then he blurts out I see four.

[djcxxxx4]

2:59 nice beard.

[ydtz07]

I love 1:47 : ) It makes me lol

[Vvrroommm]

@ydtz07 Yeah.I see what your saying....ALL of the 'confederates' looked at the dude like what are looking at dude..lol

[sweetshaman]

fascinating. but sad.

[LordGavin]

muahaha

[777Skeptic]

Lol @ description.

[DoctorJohnJGibbons]

Obamatrons should be right at home watching this.

[1995firefly4dr]

group think