Asch's Conformity Experiment. Video demonstrating that many are sheep and why.

I when I watched this, I was thinking to myself, " I would never be that guy who allows public opinion to sway my own." I have always had a propensity to go against the grain. Many of you on here are the same way which I truly enjoy.

I, for one, have had little patience with the "sheep" of our society. The problem is, its not their fault. Human beings seemed to be equipped with an instinct that wants to be in good standing with a group which leads them to deny what their own eyes see and their own logic tells them.

Those of you that think when the time for a revolution comes that there will be a huge number of free thinkers to come to your aid are mistaken. If you are in the minority, you will be the outcast and shunned even by those people you are trying to help.


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[edit on 3-6-2009 by SuperSecretSquirrel]

[edit on 3-6-2009 by SuperSecretSquirrel]

Well, I guess it's my turn to say this but...

Video isn't working - The URL contained a malformed video ID. What I got when I clicked its link below it too.

What I find more disturbing are self-titled revolutionaries who cry for a new system and replace the old simply with a system more geared towards rewarding them and punishing their detractors. Whereas they generally lived in an opposing system.

Actually, this describes nearly every "revolution" I can think of.

It makes sense for people to want to belong. There is safety in numbers. What doesn't make sense to me is that those numbers grow or are culled based on ideological concepts which can never truly be shared but only agreed upon. And even this only vaguely by the allowances of human communication to interpret human thought.

I personally long for a genuine "revolution" where the system is based not on what an individual believes, which manifests only service to the system and its leaders, but a system that serves the people that create it.

But this will require radical thinking that exposes the weakness of current systems and abolishes the reliance on the propagation of wealth as a measure of personal value. A system which is neither capitalist or socialist which are merely opposite sides of the same coin.

Jeez, finally fixed video. Sorry about that.

Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments

Its clear that people would rather question their own judgment in the face of opposition than risk being the odd one out. If these controlled "tests" were conducted in real life scenarios involving risk or danger, the results might be different.

If 5 out of 6 see a short line when I see a long line, guess what? I'm going to vote for the long line and then expect the rest to tell me why they questioned their own eyesight and judgment.

reply to post by warrenb


Thanks warrenb

My girlfriend is a psychology major in grad school and she told me about this experiment a while back. I had never seen the video though. Scary stuff!

Going against the grain, thinking for yourself, and standing for what you believe in are qualities that are unfortunately in short supply among the general population.

I wanted to add this thought: What if the teacher from your video was accompanied by several other teachers who were also shocking their students. I bet the test subject would go beyond what he/she thought was appropriate just because nobody else would stop.

[edit on 3-6-2009 by SuperSecretSquirrel]

Hey, I am impressed that the conformity was only 37%!

reply to post by Aeons


I'd like to see the experiment done today. The videos are from the 70's I think. Society was a bit different back then.

I'd be curious to see how inflated that % would be today.

reply to post by warrenb


Agreed. In the few decades since this experiment, people have become conditioned to rely on the opinions of others instead of listening to their own reasoning. A side effect from our current nanny-state or the objective of our nanny-state?