In 1955, Solomon Ash published an article “Opinions and Social Pressure” to a popular magazine. The article outlines an experiment conduced by Ash about conformity and how humans act when faced with conformity. Using cards with various length of lines, Solomon gathers 123 college students to question the length of each. Within this experiment, many different variables were in play in order to outline how a certain subject would respond. Although Solomon Ash’s experiment and article may have been effective in a time where racism and sexism were evident, it is viewed as non effective today. Specifically looking at Ash’s writing style, his choice of vocabulary was far fetched and hard to understand. It may be argued that at the time this article was published, the vocabulary was appropriate. However, when …show more content…
This was not a scientific paper, it was an article published to a popular magazine at the time. Ash should have kept his audience in mind when writing this article. For example, Ash , in the beginning, discussed social conditions and how they shape opinions, then went on to talk about hypnosis, and finally, discussed his experiment and the results. To a reader, the organization does not make sense and is confusing; all of the pieces to the article do not have any link. While the organization has some issues, the actual experiment does not get any better. Social conditions play a huge role in determining how one does or does not conform and to what degree. There are various factors that Ash should have taken into account such as how a subject is raised and who the subject surrounds himself with. If it is human nature to conform, the results of his experiment were incorrect because not all of his subjects conformed to the norm. Even the stubbornness or the wish to stand out could play a role in how well someone will conform. To fix this, Ash could have studied his subjects to find
In chapter 6 I learned more on how social influence impacts our everyday relations. There are three levels of social influence and they are by conformity, compliance and obedience. The first section talks about conformity, and it is the lowest level because we voluntarily adapt our behavior to match others. Now there are two variations or reasons outlined by the book to conform to those around us and they are “normative social influence,” and “informational social influence”. The former is our response to feel a greater sense of belonging in the group while the second deals more with us trying to be right by sometimes going with what others say to be right too.
In the second chapter of the book, Whistling Vivaldi, the author, Claude M. Steele, makes a number of fair assessments on how people’s prejudices and preconceived notions can interfere with someone’s ability to live up to their full potential. Even those who don’t notices these preconceptions can be unintentionally placing them on others, unwittingly experiencing them, or both. There are several key points that Steele raises in his writings which reinforce the aforementioned thoughts, one being that the students are unconsciously aware of the biases they place on themselves, another element is that when students feel bigotry being placed upon them, they oftentimes underperform, and lastly the lack of balance which can be found in experiments.
Although this article focuses on the decline of big words and the author’s prejudiced love for them, Bernstein uses phrases that are colloquial. Referencing dichotomous relationships, she states, “Add to this list language junkies
This concept isn’t necessarily intentional, “peer pressure can cause conformity… whether this is because people disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes or if it was just compliance, that people hide their opinions” (Shuttleworth). The real life Asch Experiment that took place in 1950 tested first hand how easily it was for a man’s mind to be changed if the other men around him disagreed with his opinion. That is showcased perfectly in Fahrenheit 451 when Montag questioned the other firemen during a simple card game about the original description of their job. When he was told “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin.
The Onion uses satirical humor to poke fun at modern advertisements and the gullibility of Americans have by mocking the techniques used to sell consumer goods; it does this through its mocking publication of a product called MagnaSoles. This article uses quotes from customers that have bought MagnaSoles, subtle jokes and puns, and the over exaggeration of the sciences implemented by Magnasoles. The article is rampant with subtle hints, jokes, and puns that key the reader in that this article is a joke. With the use of "pseudoscientists" and "pseudoscience" used throughout the article, as well as the "scientific-sounding literature", this is an indicator that this is not real science talking. It also makes fun of the use of making a paper seem more credible through its constant
Firstly, a norm is defined as rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit cultural standards. This relates to the particular experiment because the whole point was to break one of these norms and see the ripple effect it had on the people around me. Another term is attitude, which is defined as a relatively stable opinion containing beliefs and emotional feelings about a topic. This has to do with the experiment because My mother, who had the biggest reaction when I broke the norm, and I have different attitudes when it comes to proper etiquette and it is something that is apparent in our behaviors when out and my mother’s role in trying to make me conform to being proper when in public. Going off of that, conformity is defined as the tendency people have to act and think like members of the group.
Creations, like most things in life, are improvable. Ideas and theories are always evolving into different ideas or more sophisticated ones. Discourse communities is a term that has been debated over the years. Three of those debaters are James Paul Gee, James P. Porter, and John Swales. In this essay I will analyze what each of these writers see as the definition of a discourse community while comparing specific points that each of them have regarding their personal view on the subject.
Conforming and moving against one’s true nature is often harmful to their mental state of being. This can be demonstrated by how “conformity can be seen as America’s most common, but dangerous psychological disorder”(Fey 6). People often force themselves into
This message of conformity and a homogenous appearance goes against the present-day beliefs that individuality and personal expression bring a positive element of variance into our day to day life. “We must cut out all that is different like a cancerous growth. It is essential to this society that we not only have a norm but that we conform to that norm. Differences weaken us. Variations destroy us.”
One would think prejudice is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that is not the case, prejudice is still a common factor in todays society. Vincent N. Parrillo’s essay “Causes of Prejudice,” helped me to understand how we are affected not just psychologically but in a sociological way as well, as John A. Camacho explains in his A Few Bad Apples opinion piece published in the Pacific Daily News. Both forms of prejudice are continued to be explained through Stud Turkel’s “C.P Ellis,” he gives us an understanding of psychological and sociological prejudice through C.P Ellis’own experiences. This furthers our understanding on how we can be affected by both psychological and sociological prejudices.
When we are in a group, whatever the group thinks we will one third of the times go along with. “Why did most subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar." A few of them said that they really did believe the group 's answers were correct (Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment). ”
People don’t want to be the odd one out and they certainly don’t want to be judged for it. This experiment showed how social pressure from a group could get a person to conform. All in all, the results of the elevator experiment show that conformity can be influenced by an individual’s innate desire to be like everyone
Conformity and the ideas that surround it have many benefits for people because it creates company for others. The opposing side may argue that conformity does not create companionship,but they would be very mistaken,conformity brings people together which allows them and the people surrounding to grow relationships with others. All throughout life kids will learn that “Conformity is part of adolescence, and some of it is normal,” said Ms. Sherman, who prefers the term “peer influence” to “peer pressure.” “It’s how teenagers learn the rules of how to communicate and how to develop relationships. ”(Rabin)
however, large majority ended up changing to face the back of the elevator age can predict conformity; younger (youngest) to conform more often (more than 40% of the time), whilst the oldest are least likely to conform (14-24% depending on if they are middle-aged adult or late-age adult - respectively) men are more likely to conform fully, while women showed higher numbers of partial conformity Asch Experiment; subjects told they were participating in a perceptual experiment participants were each placed in a room with 7 “confederates” who were actually actors acting as to be also participants cards were shown to all the participants in their respective groups (with actors) and the participants were seated in a certain way so they would answer last (after each actor in their group) for the first two trials, the actors (everyone) answered correctly - with the most obvious answer after these two trials, they began to experiment whether the participant would also follow them (purposely giving obviously ‘wrong’ answers) subjects tend to follow their groups’ opinion due to ‘group pressure’ a majority of participants that participated (as the subject), tend to ‘follow’ the majority of the group → following their answers, despite knowing that the answer is obviously
In Politics and the English Language, Orwell writes, “In certain types of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader” (Language that Manipulates, 238). Orwell asks the reader to evaluate a scenario in order to point out one or more of the ways society takes words for granted. Orwell carefully exaggerates the issue of vocabulary apprehension and usage, thereby drawing light to the impending consequences of a seemingly small societal issue.