Asch Paradigm: Don't let people make you wrong.

We do something just because others do the things in the same way. To put it in simple words our actions and behaviour is guided or influenced by others' actions and behaviour.

This psychological effect is called Asch paradigm or social conformity. This me we try to seek social conformity to get social acceptance. It got its name because of the experiment conducted by the Solomon Asch a polish psychologist and in this experiment 37 % of the participant chose to answer wrong even they had known the answer was wrong because others in the experiment who was fake participants chose to give wrong answer.

The two major motives in conformity are:

1) normative influence, or the tendency to conform in order to gain social acceptance; and
2) informational influence which is based on the desire to obtain useful information through conformity and achieve a correct or appropriate result.

Several factors are associated with conformity. A few of these include:

1. Group size - individuals are more likely to conform in larger groups, although research suggests that conformity pressures peak once the majority reaches about four or five
2. Unanimity - individuals are more likely to conform when the rest of the group's response is unanimous
3. Cohesion - groups high in cohesion produce more conformity than non-cohesive groups
4. Status - individuals are more likely to conform with high status groups
5. Culture - collectivist cultures exhibit a higher degree of conformity than individualistic cultures
6. Gender - societal norms establish gender differences which affect the ways in which men and women conform to social influence; women are more likely to conform than men in situations involving surveillance, but less likely when there is no surveillance
7. Age - younger individuals are more likely to conform, perhaps due to lack of experience and status
8. Importance of stimuli - in a study where participants were told that their responses would be used in the design of aircraft safety signals, conformity decreased, suggesting that individuals may conform less frequently when the task is considered important

So if you live in a world with full of dumb people to get their acceptance you will choose to become dumb deliberately. If not them why bother, be yourself and don't let people tell you who you are.

Random Master

Author & Editor

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