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letnja_kisha) wrote2004-05-21 03:09 pm
letnja_kisha) wrote2004-05-21 03:09 pm
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Related: conformity
Conformity
Psychologists have discovered that even the most independent-minded of us will conform to social pressure when we are with a group of people. In one classic experiment, people were shown a vertical line and asked to find a line of identical length from a selection of three.
You might think that this is an absurdly easy task, and when people perform it by themselves they do very well. However, psychologists have discovered that we are very easily swayed by the opinions of other people when we do this task in a group. In one study, a group of three people was set up, where two of the people were confederates of the experimenter. When the confederates deliberately gave wrong answers, people were often swayed to give the wrong answer also. In fact, 75% of people gave at least one wrong answer, with some people conforming to peer pressure on every occasion.
Psychologists have discovered that even the most independent-minded of us will conform to social pressure when we are with a group of people. In one classic experiment, people were shown a vertical line and asked to find a line of identical length from a selection of three.
You might think that this is an absurdly easy task, and when people perform it by themselves they do very well. However, psychologists have discovered that we are very easily swayed by the opinions of other people when we do this task in a group. In one study, a group of three people was set up, where two of the people were confederates of the experimenter. When the confederates deliberately gave wrong answers, people were often swayed to give the wrong answer also. In fact, 75% of people gave at least one wrong answer, with some people conforming to peer pressure on every occasion.