The Science Of Social Psychology - 1329 Words

â€Å"If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples†, said Philip G. Zimbardo, a prominent researcher of the field of social psychology. What is social psychology, you might ask? In short, it represents and defines an individual’s actions when the said individual is placed in a social situation. It also defines how you choose to act, often subconsciously, in the face of others. The science of social psychology is a youthful one, it’s existence barely a century old. However, it is with it’s existence that we are able to decipher topics such as conformity, independence, and identity on a logical basis. We use it, to a degree, to study how every group has an impact on a singular entity, as well as how those impacts end up†¦show more content†¦His theories were tested in his famous line test experiments, where a participant, placed last in a row of other â€Å"participants† (actors) were to choose the correct corresp onding line for a set of lines. However, all the actors were instructed to answer incorrectly, leading the participants to conform, on average, â€Å"about one third (32%)†(Asch 1-70) of the time in the complete trials. In addition, the varying cases monitored had shown that â€Å"75% of the participants had conformed at least once† (McLeod) during the duration of their tests. The majority of the subjects felt that their judgement was clouded, or, more surprisingly, knew that the group was incorrect yet went with the flow to avoid conflict. The real world impacts of this trial are massive: By placing individuals in groups, there bears the risk of conformity overtaking the free will of the group through the want of the individual to fit in, known as normative influence, or the clouding of their judgement through believing that the group has the better answer, known as informational influence. This can have massive repercussions in group centric fields such as politics, or affect the opinions of the members of a group during discussions. In addition, the urge to â€Å"fit in†, often experienced by many teenagers, is attributed to the same effect. Conformity is a powerful force, capable of weakening the strongest