Conforming to the Majority Research Proposal Essay

Previous Research The subject of conformity is one that has not been extensively researched over the years. There are very few famous studies concerning conformity but of them Soloman E. Asch’s stands out. In Asch’s experiments, students were told that they were participating in a ‘vision test.’ While unaware to the subject, the other participants in the experiment were all confederates, or assistants of the experimenter. Seated in a room with the other participants, you are shown a line segment and then asked to choose the matching line from a group three segments of different lengths. The experimenter asks each participant individually to select the matching line segment. Confederates are asked first and on some occasions everyone in the group chooses the correct line, but occasionally, they unanimously state that a different line is actually the correct match. While the subject knows for a fact that they are wrong, it is then that you find out whether or not they will conform to the unanimous answer or state what they know to be true. The results in Asch’s experiment rang true to my own hypothesis. Close to 75 percent of the subjects in the conformity experiments went along with the rest of the group at least once. After combining all of the trials, the results showed that participants conformed to the incorrect group answer roughly one-third of the time. To ensure that participants were capable of knowing which lines were correct in the first place they were asked to write down there answers privately on a sheet of paper. According to these results, participants chose the correct answer 98 percent of the time. The next study this researcher gathered information from was interested in the consideration of age in the conformity experiments. Considering most theories of conformity do not consider adult development. This study examined age differences and their responses for two types of tests: judging geometric shapes and facial expressions. Participants were 21 younger women (18-35 years old) and 20 elderly women (63-85 years old). Researchers told the subjects to sit in one of four soundproof booths that were stocked with a desk, chair, headphones, and a microphone. They were told that the purpose of the experiment was to study how differently people judge slides of shapes and faces. The participants were given the code name ‘blue’ and when called on would give their answer but previous to that the code names â€Å"red,† â€Å"green,† and â€Å"yellow† were called out and a recording of incorrect answers was played. Thus, the participants believed the other four participants were giving the incorrect answer. As predicted, older people, compared with their younger counterparts, displayed lower rates of social conformity. The next study this researcher divulged in was about the inhibitions of people whose opinion is not shared by the majority. The experiment involved 246 students of the University of Toronto and 348 residents of Toronto. The researcher created surveys that were administered over the phone by a team of interviewers. Of the many questions asked several were what you could consider politically incorrect. For example, â€Å"This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are. True or False?† Once the question had been asked the interviewer started a timer and once the participant had answered stopped the timer. The results were as follows; minority opinions took significantly longer to respond than that of majority opinions. Meaning that those who decided to answer with an opinion knowingly opposite of that of their fellow country took a longer time to admit their answer. In the next study, children at a preschool; ages 4-6 years old were put in a similar situation as Asch’s subjects. In the classroom, there would be one â€Å"minority student† and the rest of the students would be told to give a wrong answer while the â€Å"minority student† was not in on it. They showed the students a book portraying a picture of an animal in size order: small, medium and large. Once the picture had been shown they took it away and showed them several other books with different animals and students had to choose which animal they had previously seen. The confederates were given the correct answer to say out loud several times then randomly given the wrong answer. The results were as follows; minority students gave a correct answer almost 100 percent of the time when there was no conflict with the majority but when conflicted with the majority’s incorrect answers the minority only answered correctly 50 percent of the time. Proposed Methods The researcher in this study wants to experiment the ideas of social conformity. They will use the structure set forth by Asch’s (1956) original experimental design. This will test how people of a given age conform to peer pressure or stand against the majority and form the minority opinion. When put in a situation where the majority of a group is answering incorrectly and the minority knows the true answer as a 100 percent fact, will they show independence? Hypothesis. Given the previous research and Asch’s experiment on conformity the researcher would have to presume that the minority will not show independence during this experiment. The majority will sway the minority to answer the way they have and will intimidate the minority. Social influences play a large role in this experiment and even larger role in our world today. Participants. The researcher in this experiment will use 60 volunteer students from the College of Staten Island (aged 18-22). This particular age group was specifically chosen, as it is believed that young adults of this age are already susceptible to peer pressure. The volunteers will be told that they will be participating in an eye exam testing the vision of college students. Participants will be separated into 4 gender-mixed groups of 15 students. The groups will be split as equally as possible between male and female. Within the group there will be 2 minority students and 13 majority students. The minority students will consist of 1 girl and 1 boy. The researcher will try to ensure that participants are not acquaintances. Methods. To begin this study the researcher will divide the subjects into their respective groups. Once the students are divided they will take 13 of the 15 students and inform them of the true meaning of this experiment. They will be told that signals will be given when they are to give the wrong answer and a different signal when they are to give the correct answer. This is when the experiment will begin. Subjects will be seated in a classroom with a research assistant standing in the back with a projector. When the experiment begins another research assistant will explain to the subjects the purpose of the experiment. They will say that they are part of a vision test and that there will be 1 line projecte d onto the board with 3 other lines adjacent to it. Of these 3 other lines 1 will be identical to the example line while 1 is only inches different and 1 is clearly an incorrect answer. They subjects must identify the identical line. They research assistant will have each student write down their answer but before doing so go around the classroom and have each subject say their answer out loud. The confederates will answer first. They will know whether to say the correct answer or incorrect answer by how the research assistant asks them to begin. If the researcher says, â€Å"Please give me your answer now† the confederates will give a false answer. If the researcher says, â€Å"And your answer is?† then the confederates will give the correct answer. When the answer is very obvious and all of the confederates say the wrong answer it is then we will find out if the subject will defy the group and not give into the social pressure.