Sherif's study on conformity
- Created by: MollyL20
- Created on: 10-09-20 17:00
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- Sherif (1935)
- Aim
- Demonstrate the people conform to groups norms when they are put into ambiguous situations
- Method
- A lab experiment
- Used the auto kinetic effect (visual illusion meaning the was no clear answer, making it ambigious)
- Participants were individually tested on their estimates of how fat the light had moved
- Then put into groups of 3, He manipulated the the composition by putting 2 people with similar scores and one with a jurastic difference of their score
- Each person had to say their answer aloud
- Results
- Most of the time the group converged to a group estimate.
- The person with the estimate which was greatly different, conformed to the view of the others
- Sherif said that most of the time people tended to conform and come to a group agreement
- Conclusion
- When in an ambigious situation, a person will look to others for guidance. They may lack the appropriate infomation
- Evaluation
- Strengths
- Lab- In a controlled setting, is replicatable
- It paved the way for further studies on conformity, as it was the first
- Weaknesses
- Lab- Artificial meaning it has a lack of ecological validity
- Participants may figure out the aim and have demand characteristics
- It was ambiguous meaning there wasn't a clear answer
- Ethical issues
- Deception- Deceived the participants as they only disclosed that it was an eye test, nothing to do with conformity
- Strengths
- Aim
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