Everybodys Doing It, My Head Is Spinning - Essay Example

We conform to the behaviors and opinions of others present in the environment. The ambiguity and uncertainty about the nature of the stimuli are the main reasons behind subjects conforming to other people.
• Explaining Asch’s Results
Ques: Why did Asch’s real participants deny the evidence of their eyes and report the obviously incorrect answers chosen by the other group?
Ans: The experimental design and the conditions created, that is the experimental and the control groups differed on the method of reporting results. The independent variable used in the study was the social pressure individuals experienced. It was found that the errors given in by the majority of people in the study influenced the perception of the right answer and the subjects gave in to social pressure. Hence they gave wrong answers.

• Motives for conformity
Ques: Explain the difference between the two main motives for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence.
Ans: informational social influence happens when there is no obviously correct answer to quantify the given question or situation. Therefore we look towards others for the information on the issue and in order to be right we get influenced by what they think. This finally leads to internalization. An example can be that in a restaurant we see how people are behaving and we behave in the same way. On the other hand, normative social influence happens when we accept what others’ perceptions are because we want to be accepted or liked by the group. This influence might also stem from a thought process designed to prevent embarrassment or possible ridicule from the normative population they belong to. This finally leads to compliance. An example to illustrate is that teenagers start smoking because others in their peer group smoke.

• Group size and conformity
Ques: What do you think happened in the “Gawker’s” study? Can u predict the results?
Ans: Increase in the group size does not increase the amount of conformity that people are subject to. With very large groups, the extent to which people conform actually falls.
• Resisting social influence
Ques: What is reactance?
Ans: reactance is the desire for personal control. Burger (1987) defined reactance as an emotional reaction in direct contradiction to rules or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. It can cause individuals to adopt an attitude that is contrary to what others think and increases resistance to social influence.

Ques: What was your train of thoughts as u navigated the picture of the candle?
Ans: The thought processes involved the concepts of objects which led the mind to think and define “candle” and “match”. It also involved the concept of action that is “lighting a candle”. Now we saw a candle and a wick, we manipulated the objects in such a way that we sufficed the objects to be used in a way that they could perform an action. In other words, we took in the raw data, manipulated it according to the already established concepts, considered various alternatives solutions for the problem at hand, and then finally arrived at an appropriate solution or the course of action which was “move the match to the candle’s wick”.
• Cooper and Shepard’s Results

Ques: In the Cooper and Shepard experiment (1973), participants were asked to decide whether a stimulus (a letter) was normal (simply rotated in the picture plane) or backward (flipped to its mirror image before the rotation). Reaction times were graphed and increased as the letters were rotated away from 0 degrees. Interestingly, reaction time decreased after 180 degrees. Can you explain why this might occur?
Ans: Reaction time decreased after 180 degrees because rotations having an angle greater than 180 degrees are conjured up to be exactly the same as smaller rotations which the eye sees in the opposite direction. This way the images look more absolute and concrete than when they are at angles that are less than 180 degrees.

• Mental Rotation Experiment
Ques: After completing the mental rotation experiment and viewing your data, how would you describe the pattern of your results? Do you think that your results fit the pattern of results from the Shepard Experiments?
Ans: Yes, my results fit the pattern of the results from Shepard’s experiments as my results of reaction time values show an increase up to 180 degrees and then a decrease in the angles successive to it that is from 180 to 300 degrees.
Ques: After comparing the graphs of your results and the results of the Cooper and Sheppard (1973) study, how similar are the two graphs? Did your results show a clear increase as the orientation moved away from vertical? Did your results show a decrease in reaction time as the orientation moved from 180 degrees to the vertical?
Ans: The graphs are quite similar as my results also showed a clear increase as the orientation moved away from vertical. Also, as predicted by experimenters, my results also showed a decrease in reaction time as the orientation moved towards 300 degrees. Read More