Social Forces & Peer Pressure

but an experiment is not a public opinion poll it examines Behavior under the pressure of social forces as the experiment of Solomon Ash reveals the experiment you'll be taking part in today involves the perception of lengths of lines your task is a very simple one you're to look at the line on the left and determine which of the three lines on the right is equal to it in length only one of the people in the group is a real subject the fifth person with the white T-shirt the others are Confederates of the experimenter and have been told to give wrong answers on some of the trials the experiment begins uneventfully as subjects give their judgments two two two two two three three three three three but on the third trial something happens two two two the subject did denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence Ash found subjects went along with the group on 37% of the critical trials but he found through interviews that they went along with the group for different reasons one one they must be right there are four of them and one of me one this subject's yielding is based on a distortion of his judgment he genuinely believes that the group is correct Ash's experiment is a classic it reveals how people people will deny what they see and submit to group pressure [Music]