Have you ever encountered a situation where a person, under the influence of the public, suddenly changed his own opinion? What do you think was the reason for this? Lack of negotiation skills, lack of awareness of the issue, the desire to please others or the inability to critically assess the situation?
In this article we will talk about such a popular phenomenon as conformism these days, and about the experiments devoted to it.
Continued research in support of Solomon Asch's theory
To further explore this issue, the psychologist conducted a similar experiment in which real participants were asked to provide answers in writing, while decoy subjects continued to answer orally. The test results showed that the conformity of the subjects in this case decreased by 12.5% compared to the first experiment.
To finally confirm his hypothesis, Solomon Asch conducted another test in which he changed the number of dummy participants. Now in a group of 17 people, only 1 was an assistant psychologist.
My opinion about the experiment
Solomon Asha studied conformity in laboratory conditions, where there was no interaction between the participants in the experimental group (that is, this group cannot be called a team). However, even in such conditions, the subjects felt the pressure of the majority and succumbed to it. I think that in fact, in real life, where each of us is included in one group or another, the degree of conformity is higher than its numerical indicators in this study.
For the history of psychology, Asch's experiment is important, as it allowed us to find answers to many questions. But at the same time, many other questions have arisen, the answers to which have not yet been found.
conclusions
We constantly encounter various manifestations of conformity. For many people, following others is much easier than defending your own point of view. Many people prefer to follow the path of least resistance and avoid conflicts with others. Sometimes conformity is the only thing that guarantees survival in a certain society.
Asch's experiment, among other things, showed that people who are prone to conformism are not necessarily distinguished by the absence of personal opinions as such. By showing conformity “in public”, in his personal space an individual may experience dissatisfaction with the established order. However, in life we often meet people who, in principle, are devoid of personal opinion. Conformity for such people is not a way of survival or self-affirmation in society, but a natural form of existence. Their desire to be like everyone else takes on a demonstrative character, and they also cannot stand those who stand out from the crowd in some way.
The concept of “spiral of silence” is inextricably linked with conformity. This means that a person is less likely to express an opinion on an issue if he feels that he is in the minority. In this case, he will prefer not to express his position and outwardly join the general mass. The “spiral of silence” also underlies such a phenomenon as public opinion. According to the theory of the German sociologist Elisabeth No el-Neumann, public opinion represents the position of a small part of society that receives media coverage; This creates the illusion that the absolute majority of the population thinks so. The rest of society, trying to avoid isolation from society and loneliness, outwardly join this “public opinion”, trying not to express their own position. This creates a position that is purely formally shared by most people, although their actual attitude to the problem may be completely different. An example of this phenomenon can be seen in Asch's experiment, where the subject sought to join public opinion, trying to avoid the ridicule of other students; if there was no “public opinion” shared by everyone, the subjects showed greater courage and voiced their position.
Conditions and progress of the experiment
Student subjects were invited to participate in a “vision test” experiment.
In fact, the purpose of the study was completely different. Each subject was seated in a classroom with seven similar students. In fact, these seven were decoy actors. The group was then shown two cards; one of them depicted a vertical line, and the other - three other lines, one of which coincided in length with the first. All participants were asked to determine which of the three lines on the second card was the same length as the line on the first. Participants took turns expressing their opinions, with the subject’s opinion being asked last. There were eighteen stages in total. At the first two stages, all decoy participants named the correct answers. But starting from the third, the actors began to name the same answer, but incorrectly. It turned out that 75 percent of the subjects obeyed the majority opinion and named a deliberately incorrect answer at least at one stage
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Subsequently, the experiment became more complicated. The actors began to give different answers, albeit incorrect ones. In this case, the percentage of errors on the part of the subjects decreased sharply: they obeyed the majority to a lesser extent. Another time, the study involved two real subjects; in this case, the subjects also obeyed the majority to a lesser extent, preferring to give the correct answers. It was revealed that the number of mistakes made by subjects depends on how categorically the actor’s “third opinion” is expressed.
The essence of the experiment
If everything is really so, and each of us is so dependent on external influence, then we can assume that this feature of a person’s personality is fertile ground for various kinds of manipulation. It is not surprising that it has been subjected to detailed study.
Solomon Eliot Asch is a Polish and American psychologist who made significant contributions to the field of conformity research. His famous experiment, the results of which were published in 1951, clearly demonstrated the power of conformity in groups.
The essence of the experiment is very simple. Two groups of students were formed and asked to participate in a vision test.
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- The first group consisted of one subject and seven “decoy ducks”
- The second consisted of freely recruited students, without figureheads.
The groups were in different classrooms and had no contact with each other. Each group was shown, in turn, two cards: the first showed a vertical line, the second had three vertical lines of different lengths drawn, where only one of the three, in its length, corresponded to the length of the line from the first card. The task was to determine which of the three lines on the second card is identical in length to the line on the first.
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The subject from the first group was offered eighteen pairs of cards for consideration. Accordingly, he had to give eighteen answers. Each time he answered last in the group. All participants give correct answers to the first two questions. Starting from the third, the “decoy ducks” give the same wrong answer.
This confuses the subject, and he also gave the wrong answer, obeying the opinion of the majority. If he continued to insist on the correct answer, then this caused him a feeling of great discomfort. The behavior patterns of the fake students in the group changed, that is, some of them always gave the correct answers to all the questions.
What is conformity
Photo by Liza Summer: Pexels
Conformity is a psychological characteristic of the position of an individual in relation to the position of the group. This characteristic reflects the extent to which you submit to group pressure in forming an opinion and making a decision.
Man by nature is a social being. The full development of the personality of any of us directly depends on our interaction within society. The very concept of personality reflects the bearer of an individual principle, which is revealed in the context of social relationships.
All your habits, moral values, the entire set of behavioral masks, all this was formed, starting from the very moment of birth, under the influence of the people with whom you interacted and the environment in which you were. The process of developing your personality continues throughout your life. As you grow up, you gain new experiences that can completely change your previously set priorities. This is a painful process, but necessary and natural.
Criticism
What is the reason for the criticism of S. Asch's experiments? Psychologists expressed the opinion that one of the subjects could express outward agreement with the opinion of the majority not because of conformity, but because he wanted to maintain friendly relations and avoid conflict.
Modern researchers have repeatedly repeated Asch's experiments. Their attempts showed similar results.
In Japan, psychologists, for the purity of the experiment, decided to conduct it without dummies. In their experiment they used special glasses. One of the group members had glasses adjusted differently from the others: he saw the segments distorted. This variation showed that conformity is more characteristic of women; men tend to resist group pressure. Some scientists express the opinion that the results obtained by the Japanese do not reflect the degree of conformity of women and men, but the characteristics of the Japanese education system, in which girls are taught to obey, and boys are taught independence.
results
74% of subjects agreed with the majority opinion. 26% of study participants did not succumb to group pressure. S. Asch's experiment demonstrated that:
- in situations where there is a discrepancy between one’s own opinion and the opinion of other group members, a person experiences discomfort, fears criticism, and therefore is inclined to demonstrate high conformity;
- the degree of manifestation of conformity in people is directly dependent on the size of the group;
- the more difficult the task, the more likely it is that a person will accept the point of view of the majority;
- having an ally reduces conformity.
Solomon Ash
Solomon Asch was born on September 14, 1907 in Warsaw into a Jewish family. When the boy was thirteen years old, his family moved to the United States and settled on the East Side of Manhattan. Asch received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1928, and his master's and doctorate degrees in 1930 and 1932 from Columbia University, where he studied under Max Wertheimer. After this, Asch taught psychology at Swarthmore College for nineteen years, working in the same team with his colleague in Gestalt psychology, Wolfgang Köhler.
In the 1950s, Asch attracted widespread attention with a number of truly revolutionary experiments in the field of social psychology. They studied such a phenomenon as conformity. Thanks to this work, the psychologist entered the scientific community and developed several theories about the influence of group pressure on human behavior.
From 1966 to 1972, Solomon Asch served as director of the Institute for Cognitive Research at Rutgers University. From 1972 to 1979 he taught psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1979 he became professor emeritus of psychology. The scientist died on February 20, 1996 at the age of eighty-nine.
Paul Kleinman: Psychology. People, concepts, experiments.
What defines conformity
Conformism, in contrast to conformity as a personality trait, determines the very process of changing attitudes, opinions, perceptions, and behavior of an individual under the influence of society. There are two types of conformism:
Why do we care about the opinions of others?
- internal is when you fully accept all the attitudes offered to you, and really reconsider your positions and views;
- external - you create the outward appearance of agreement with the imposed attitudes, thus avoiding open confrontation with society.
Conformity can be safely attributed to the defense mechanisms of the individual. The danger of constantly using this mechanism in everyday life is that the price may be a complete loss of your “I”. True, there are additional “buns”; you rarely experience a feeling of loneliness and anxiety, becoming like everyone else, and accepting the behavior model of culture and society.
