In-Group Conformity Paper

Words: 1055
Pages: 5

Incentives & In-Group Conformity As humans, working in groups will always be a vital part in ensuring the survival of the human race. It takes the creative intelligence of each individual to keep the world running like a well-oiled machine. Yet, how many influential ideas have been lost to the pressures of normative influence, or even worse, groupthink? During the “Studies of Independence and Conformity” (1956), Asch discovered the basis of normative influence, which is when one changes their behavior to match the perceived social norm that results from concern of others’ opinions of oneself. Participants in the study were asked to answer questions, but answered them incorrectly when their peers gave incorrect answers. Considering …show more content…
In regard to the Asch study, the most important component is the image motivation component and the extrinsic award component. The image motivation component depends both on value set by themselves or someone else as well as how much they care about their own reputation, and how public their image is. The extrinsic award component is what the individual receives in return for their efforts. Applying such logic to the Asch study, the extrinsic award component would be the money, and the image motivation component would be the …show more content…
A greater reward of twenty-five cents will be granted to the participant with the most correct answers in addition to a certificate of accurate completion. The main difference in the sample population is that the participants involved will remain male college students, but not Swarthmore students. During the original study, the participants were fifty male college students from Swarthmore College. A group of six “participants” (one was an actual participant, while the others were confederates) were presented with a pair of cards, one with a line and another three lettered lines (one of which matched the first card), and they were asked to specify aloud which line matched the line on the first card. Sixteen pairs of cards were presented at once. After the first two trials, the confederates gave obviously wrong answers and seventy-five percent of the participants verbally conformed to the confederates at least once despite knowing the correct answer. In conclusion, participants knew that they were giving the wrong answer, but felt that giving the wrong answer was more important than straying away from the common thoughts of the