Opinions and Social Pressure Response Essay

Summary In the article, Opinions and Social Pressure by Solomon E. Asch, he states that br some otherly pressure from a majority group could influence a mortal to conform. Asch and his research team wanted to find step forward how and how much complaisant forces constrain pluralitys opinions and attitudes. The researchers also wanted to find out whether or non, when confronted with an in moderate service, individuals would conform to the group or have his take in answer.The examine starts with seven to nine young manpower seated in a room. The young group of men have been told before the sample to all agree on the correct answer and continue to swear the correct answer, eject one mortal. The support individual has no root that the others were told to state the incorrect answers the entire time. There atomic number 18 two tease placed in front of the members that consist of four lines, all of contrary lengths. The card on the left is the line you are comparing the other three lines to on the card on the right. The members would answer which two lines are identical in order from who sit down first to who sat down last. All of the young men continue to give the correct answer. On this set of trials only 1% of the time the subject would dissent with the majority. To see if the minority would continue to conform, Asch conducted a second trial. During this trial, all of the participants, except one, stated the violate answer. When the last person answered, the subject quickly changes his answer to the wrong answer.On this set of trials, 36.8% of the time the minority agreed with the incorrect answer. On the third trial, Asch decided to add more people to the minority. As the contestants gave their answers, those in the majority were allowed to give any answer they wanted. These results showed that 13.6% accepted the wrong answer compared to the second experiment. This suddendrop indicates with only one person in the minority, he was more likely to conform. When at that place were more in the minority, participants were more likely to answer how they would and not feel pressured. In the last experiment, the member in the minority was allowed to be seated next to soulfulness he knew personally. During this set of trials, the member in the minority ended up answering almost invariably independent. Out of all of the trials, Asch concluded that people will conform for two reasons they want to fit in with the others and because they commit the group is better informed (on an intuition level) than they are.Response While there have been many psychological tests similar to this, this experiment lacks certain criteria that I believe would change the outlook of this experiment. Since this experiment was done in the 1950s, which was a time in which it was the norm to conform, this could not address to young men now based on how time has changed along with norms. Secondly, since this was done in America, this could not fully take effect in other countries because not all countries conform like we do, so the statistical evidence would transform immensely. Besides the negative, two studies have brought some more insight to this experiment that have shed light as to how time changes Aschs results.In a conformity experiment by Richard Crutchfield, his studies found participants with high intelligence scores and leadership abilities to show less conformity than others-which is something Asch did not address. Secondly, in 1980, psychologists Perrin & Spencer replicated Aschs study and found only one conforming response in 396 trials. They said cultural changes over the last fifty old age had led to a reduction in conformity (McLeod). Based on all the evidence, I do believe that under certain dowery we do conform, but not a majority of the time due to how we are raised, norms, cultural changes, and other aspects that could change how we view things.