1/3 Psychology experiment on adolescent conformity

Part 1 of my Solomon Asch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments) social psych experiment. Done in New Canaan, CT, for an adolescent psychology course, the idea was to put people in an "awkward" situation where they would feel an internal conflict between conforming to a group which is obviously giving wrong answers to a test, or standing out as the only person to deviate and give correct responses. In order to offset suspicion, they were told this was a simple part 1 of an experiment for technical purposes, and that a "real" experiment was coming after.

Rather than compile statistical data as Asch did, I looked at each individual subject and proposed possible explanations for why they behaved the way they did, mostly relating to Erik Erikson's seven conflicts of adolescent identity formation.

Oh, and because I like funny stuff, it's not all serious, it's meant to be kinda entertaining regardless of academic benefit :-)

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• psychology
• experiment
• adolescence
• teenagers
• conformity
• group
• pressure
• social
• solomon
• asch
• new
• canaan
• CT
• grumbles
• nchs

[spiralgear]

Its because he doesn't care about the experiment, and there are no consequences for answering incorrectly. If you did this same study on people in a high pressure situation where they stood a chance of loosing something they would be much more vocal and confident in their opinions.

If you strip away the premise of the experiment, its just a simple choice with an obvious answer.

A: Say something you don't care about and get mocked

B: Say something you dont care about and don't get mocked.

[grumbles]

@spiralgear That is a good point, and there was a variable that attempted to control for that, at least to an extent; I told the kids that the "real" experiment was a test on perception, but that we first had to do a "part 1" (i.e., the experiment you see here) as a formality just to make sure there were no problems, before going on to the part 2 which would be the "actual experiment"/ In reality, there was no "part 2", and the actual real experiment was the "part 1". The idea was that there

[grumbles]

@spiralgear was some importance to the answers they were giving, and that it did have an effect on whether we could continue to part 2 or not

[marginallyxinsane]

Some people, though, would go with the majority because the test is so simple that they may feel like they're overlooking something. For example, if everyone ALL said the incorrect answer, even someone who doesn't value socializing at all might have changed their mind because they're likely wrong.

In Kevin's case, though, it was most likely social. He knew the answer, but saw that Jeff, who guessed the right answer, was treated poorly.

[grumbles]

that is very true. there are 2 kinds of social influence: normative and informational. kevin is an example or normative, he knew he was wrong but due to the social "norm" created by the group he went along with them anyway--a conscious decision to change even though you believe something else.

Informational is what you described first--if you are unsure about something, or there is some ambiguity, you go along with them, even if you felt differently, because you think they music be correct

[Arcadia453]

Adolescent conformity?

How about the conformity of every single human being

[James9533]

"FUCKING IDIOT!"

LMFAO.

[bboydevs]

I dont know why people dont understand conformity! i see it all the time! Different nieghborhoods promote certain behavior. People from the outside of that situation judge as if their judgement itself doesn't devrive from their environment. Self-awarness

[costa020]

Having watched the 3 parts of this I would tentatively suggest their is a bit of a confound in the freedom the peers have to react. From what I understand, the original study by Asch was less interactive. Their constant laughter seems to change the dynamic of the study from being one of a person feeling like a statistical minority to maybe more a question of how vulnerable people are to ridicule. Either way, with a sample like this it probably produces the same results and I love this video

[bboydevs]

i see adults do this all the time. the group can kiss my ass is how i always felt

[TheLethaxx]

Charlie seemed confident because of his social status as you said, the thing that gets me is when he challenges students that are much older than him. cant understand why he did that.

[thegoonist]

FUCKIN IDIOT LMAO!!! that guy was awesome hahahaaha

[wizkeyzero]

very good video. Enjoyed watching it!