Abstract
In social psychology there are many researchers who investigated and challenged different theories within including well respected psychologists including; Sheriff(1935); Jenness(1932); Asch(1951); Crutchfield(1955) and Mann(1969). The aim of the study was; guessing how many sweeties were in the jar in a competition fashion and testing if the participants conformed to their guesses. The hypothesis was ' people would conform under group pressures of the pre-set guesses. The null hypothesis was that people would not conform under group pressures unless due to extraneous variables. The experiment was a field experiment using the techniques of independent groups design. The experiment was dressed as a competition based on the following three conditions; high pre-set; control pre-set and low pre-set guesses. The group used random selection in three math classes with the senior pupils of three different levels (higher, intermediate one and intermediate two). The IV (independent variable) that was used was the pre-set guesses and the DV (dependent variable) was the level of conformity performed by the participants. The conclusion of the results showed that 31.25% of the high pre-set guesses conformed (in the reign of 40+), 23.33% of the low pre-set guesses conformed (in the reign of -30) and 43.48% of the control pre-set guesses conformed (within the reign of 25-45). The breakdown of the analysis for instance the mean of all conditions and overall, the range of all conditions and control(appendix 13). After the group completed the experiment thought was put into how testing conformity could be continued. The ideas from the experiment could lead to testing the intelligence levels of people who conform and test is this level of intelligence has an effect on the level of conformity.
Introduction
Social psychology is an area in which investigations are made into the effects of behavioural differences of individuals and how they reflect
References: http://freespace.virgin.net/kerridwen.red/ASnotes/Conformity.htm http://www.simplypsychology.org/conformity.html the studies for Asch(1969) : http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html