Conformity Essay

Each naive therefore had 7opportunities to conform to something they could see to be wrong. Sherif and Asch have each conducted fairly artificial laboritory experiments whichshowed that about 30% of responses can be explained by the need or desire of thesubjects to conform. Ash was a harsh critic of Sherifs experimental design and claimed that it showed littleabout conformity since there was no right answer to conform to. Ash conducted what are now describedas classic experiments in conformity. Generalising from its conclusions to real life might beinnacurate. This is not to say they aren't criticised today orthat its conclusions are wholly acceptable now - they showed the application of thescientific method to social psychology and we used as models of how to conductpsychological research. On the leftside of the board there was a white card with a single black line drawn vertically on it. The naive subject was a member of agroup he didn't know and might never see again who suddenly and for no apparentreason started saying something which directly contradicted the evidence of his owneyes. However, some of them do have a common sense appeal. When they heard other reportedjudgements they may have decided to go along with them. About three quarters of them conformed on atleast one occasion. Two of the lines on the card on the right were longer or shorther thanthe target line. In subsequent experiments Ash used between 7 and 9 subjects using the sameexperimental procedure. Firstlythe studies do not identify the motive or type of conformity. Ash designed anexperiment where there could be absolutely no doubt about whether subjects would beconforming or not and it was absolutely clear what they were conforming to.