Opinions and social pressure
Opinions and social pressureIn "Opinions and Social Pressure," Asch describes an to find out the effects of group pressure. First, Asch and his colleagues collect a group of seven to nine young men, all college students, and assembles them in a classroom. The experimenter then explains to them that they will be visually
comparing the lengths of three lines. He then shows the group two cards, one with a single vertical line, and the other with three vertical lines on it. The length of the three lines differ from three-quarters of an inch too an inch and three quarters; there is one that is the same as the other card. The young men are to choose the lines that match each other from the two different cards. Then the young men state their answers in the order they have been placed in the room. This then happens another seventeen times for a total of eighteen times that the group must choose. The first two rounds go by with everyone agreeing, then on the third trial, the subject near the end of the group disagrees with the rest of the class. On the following trial, he disagrees again. Asch and his colleagues describe the person as becoming more
worried and hesitant as the experiment continues, and he may do things like pause before he speaks or speak in a low voice..... According to the author (338). The subject does not know that the rest of the group has been instructed by the experimenters to purposely...
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