Social conformity

Brain Games is a National Geographic series showing different experiments and explaining how does human brain work. One of the experiments performed is a bit similar to Asch Conformity Experiment and it also shows the power of social conformity.

In this experiment, there is shown a group of patients in a waiting room waiting for their eye doctor appointment – all of these people are actors. Every once in a while they hear a beep sound and immediately after that, they stand up. Next, there is shown a  woman who came for her eye doctor appointment and  isn’t aware about the experiment. She enters the waiting room and sees that every time other patients hear the beep they stand up. It took her only three beeps to join the rest and  stand up after hearing the sound. Even though this woman doesn’t understand why other people are doing it, she still does that with them, because she doesen't want to stand out. 

After some time, all of other patients (who are actors), except for her are called out for their alleged appointments and the woman is left alone in the waiting room, but she still stands up after every beep. Next, some other people (who aren’t aware of the experiment and think they came for the appointment) come and they also start doing the exact same thing she does – they stand up every time they hear the sound.

Conformity is how we become socialized, but it can also cause us to develop bad habits or repeat wrong behaviors and this experiment shows how easily conformity affects the way we act.


source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4


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