Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 166

We have seen that group members generally conform to certain aspects of the group with which they prefer to identify. Some conformity is clearly necessary for a group to survive. If everyone “did his or her own thing,” or went his or her own way, there would be no group. But too much conformity can have disastrous consequences. A central issue in the sociological study of groups has been the degree to which members conform to the expectations and demands of the group, despite their own misgivings.

A series of experiments, conducted by Solomon Asch (1952), showed the power of the group to promote conformity. Asch demonstrated that its power is so great that it may override an individual’s own judgments and perceptions. In one of the experiments, groups of seven to nine students were assembled. All but one (the subject) were confederates of the researcher. All but the subject knew the details of the experiment. Only the subject believed that the experiment was investigating vision. Each group was shown two cards, one with one vertical line on it and a second with three such lines (see Figure 4.3). One of the lines on the second card was the same length as the line on the first card. The other two lines were clearly different. All the students were asked to choose the line on the comparison card that matched the single line on the reference card. As they had been instructed, each of the confederates chose, out loud, one of the wrong lines. The subjects were always positioned last in their groups. When the subjects’ turns came, about a third of them conformed to their groups’ erroneous choice and selected the same wrong line. They made the wrong choice even though they apparently knew it was the wrong choice.

Description

Figure 4.3 Solomon Asch’s Conformity Experiment Cards

Source: Solomon Asch’s Conformity Experiment Cards is adapted from Solomon E. Asch, Opinions and Social Pressure, Scientific American, 193 (1955), pp. 31–35.

There is no question that some people conform to group demands at least some of the time. Conformity is especially likely when the demands come from someone in authority in the group. However, it is important to remember that about two-thirds of the choices made by subjects in the Asch conformity experiments indicated independence from the group. It is also important to note that these experiments are decades old, and many of them occurred in a period of American history more defined by conformity than the era we are in today.

This chapter has focused largely on such micro-level phenomena as individuals, interaction, and groups. In Chapter 5, we turn to the progressively more macro-level phenomena of organizations, societies, and the globe as a whole. ●