Contractuality As A Means Of Conformity Analysis

Solomon Asch set up a laboratory experiment using deception and confederates to determine what factors were involved in conformity and individual decisions in group decisions. Asch instructed subjects to choose which of three lines was the same length as the original line shown. Each subject was on a panel with seven other subjects, however in reality were confederates. The experimenter demonstrated the two cards and asked the individuals to choose the line on the comparison card that is the same length as the standard line. In the second trial the process was repeated again. However, on the third trial, when the card is revealed everyone gave wrong answers. The results indicate that approximately 75% of the subjects went with the group’s

What is cognitive dissonance? Give an example of cognitive dissonance. Also, explain how one would adjust behaviors to become more consistent with attitudes. Cognitive dissonance is when you have conflicting/contradictory beliefs or views on something that can cause you to feel some sort of guilt or “discomfort.” A prime example of cognitive dissonance is smoking.

Asch’s experiment was performed in 1951 and is now a classic experiment in psychology. Asch asked individuals a simple question and a high percentage answered correctly. Then Asch placed a participant in a room with seven actors who had predetermined incorrect answers. When asked in front of the group, 75% of people would give incorrect answers clearly because of they conformed to the actors around them. Asch then concluded that it is natural for one to conform to society in order to fit

Solomon Asch was a psychologist that conduced numerous expirments designed to illustrate the increasing conformity within social groups. The experiments also invesigated the effect the number of people present within the group had one the conformity rate. Asch hypothesized, “ that the majority of the people would not conform to something obviosly wrong; however, when surrounded by (other) individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, 75% of them(the participant) will conform to the groups answer” (Watzlawick 1976)

Often times in life people will feel it necessary to conform in order to fit into certain groups of people. When a person conforms it usually leads to them changing the way they behave. This

With this addiction would allow Asch to determine how the answers of the subject would change with the addition of peer pressure onto the real subject. The results of the experiment were interesting, which showed that peer pressure was a big influence on the answers given by the subjects. The results about the people giving an incorrect answer, one third of the real subjects also voiced an incorrect answer. The means that 75% of the subjects gave the wrong answer to at least one question, so there was no doubt that peer pressure can cause conformity. There was debate whether peer pressure can cause conformity because people did not believe the results and believe that the subjects were just being obedient. There were many other Asch Experiments that showed disobedient voices that difference to the results, so did the forcefulness of the actors. For example, one incorrect answer made by an actor made little difference to the answers, but the influence increased if two or more people disagreed. The results did not change much after this point because more actors made little difference. Also, the number of people in the group also made a

In 1951, Solomon Asch carried out several experiments on conformity. The aim of these studies was to investigate conformity in a group environment situation. The purpose of these experiments was to see if an individual would be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. Asch believed that conformity reflects on relatively rational process in which people are pressured to change their behaviour. Asch designed experiments to measure the pressure of a group situation upon an individual judgment. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can really play a big role in disbelieving our own senses.

1. fundamental attribution error - a person that in a given situation evaluates another's person decision or action by some internal characteristics, not taking into consideration exceptional situations that might lead that person in such a decision or action. example: Alice, a driver, is about to pass through an intersection. Her light turns green and she begins to accelerate, but another car drives through the red light and crosses in front of her.

There is a fundamental human need to belong to social groups especially if people were to live and work together, it is likely that they need to agree on common beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours in order to get along and fit-in. Thus, we learnt to conform to rules of other people, the more people see others behaving in a particular way or making particular decisions, the more likely people will feel obliged to follow the suit. This is called conformity and can be defined in different ways, Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2014) stated it is the changing of one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), social influence should be distinguished into two types, the informational social influence and normative social influence. The occurrence of social influence has implied to many real life events, which has drawn many researchers to attention. This has lead many researchers to design distinct experiments to try and understand the cause of the conformity, whether conformity is situation dependent, and whether we are able to resist social influences.

Salomon E. Asch in his essay “Opinions and Social Pressure” conducted an experiment to determine effects of group pressure towards an individual and concluded that there is a very strong tendency to conformity even when doing so conflicting with their own senses of morality. In the experiment a group of young students have to compare length of lines on two different sheets of paper. On one of them there is a sample single line and on the other one there are three lines only one of which is same size as the sample line from the first sheet. People taking part in this experiment are instructed to point at lines that are the same length. At first, during the experiment the group is

If one is trying to pull a thought or feeling in closer, or push it away, they may be attempting to manipulate their cognitive dissonance. If one knows that they are not happy with their actions, they can dilute that feeling of cognitive dissonance by decreasing the negative or enhancing the positive attitudes about it (Smith & Mackie, n.d.). One might be a smoker for instance, and know that smoking is bad for them, but continue smoking anyway. A perception of a clash of unsuitable elements is a way to describe the way one feels when their actions and beliefs are at odds (McLeod, 2014). So, if one is unhappy about the things they do because they do not match what they think they should do, they will be said to be experiencing cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance means feeling tension when our thoughts and beliefs are inconsistent. An example of this is when people smoke even though they are aware of the consequences that can occur such as cancer which leads to cognitive dissonance. This occurs almost everyday in our lives, whether we are aware of it or not. An one example that was shown on one of the episodes of Friends made us aware of this happening.

But conforming to what the majority is doing because it is deemed as cool is a whole different story. Instead of conforming to keep society running smoothly, we sometimes conform due to fear that we will receive hateful backlash for breaking against the norm or in fear that we will be wrong. Solomon Asch explains the latter reason when he conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. In his experiment, there was only one true participant and 4 other fake participants that will help prove his point correct. Cards were shown to everyone where there were lines of different length illustrated. They all had to choose which line was the longest. The first four people at the table were the fake participants and purposely chose the wrong answers. The last person was the true participant in the experiment and in all of the experiments they conducted, the last person always went with what the rest of the group thought even though he knew that the answer was incorrect. After the experiment was conducted, the real participants were interviewed and asked why they went along with everyone else even though they knew the answer was incorrect. “Most of them said that they did not really

Some incidences I am aware of when I conform and in other circumstances I must do automatically because I do not notice my conformity. There was one particular incident which involved a group discussion in class, my sophomore year of college. I was taking a political science course to fulfill my general education requirement and my group and I were discussing the Constitution. We have just learned new concepts and we have to apply them to the Constitution and the teacher also gave a case study as an activity to complete during class. I had never taken a political science class before and everyone in my group was majoring in political science. Therefore, I felt as though I did not have sufficient knowledge on the topics like everyone else in the group. There was a lot of personal opinion in these particular answers and while I would think of something in my head, I did not agree with any of the other four people in my group. I thought maybe it is because I am a psychology major and I think about situations differently. I believed that everyone else in the group was more knowledgeable when it came to these topics and better informed. When we jotted down our final responses, I did not agree with any of the responses but because I thought they were more informed, I conformed. I agreed with the responses outwardly, but not inwardly. I did not want to be wrong or rejected from my group members. This

Cognitive Dissonance is when individuals have an inward need to guarantee that their convictions and practices are reliable. Conflicting or clashing convictions prompt disharmony, which individuals endeavor to stay away from. An example I have faced in my life is that I generally love to eat junk food, but they are unhealthy. I have many other options, along with the same junk food, I can have a healthy salad, or I could eat oil-free food more.