Social Psychology Experiments

Asch's Experiment/ Paradigm

Conformity, group size, and cohesiveness. Asch found that one of the situational factors that influence conformity is the size of the opposing majority. In a series of studies he varied the number of confederates who gave incorrect answers from 1 to 15. asked participants which line was bigger (the answer was obvious) students who knew about the experiment answered incorrectly, those who didnt mostly followed the incorrect response, mostly dependent on how large the group was. people did not want to be the odd one out The "real" participant answered last or next to last. For the first two trials, the subject would feel at ease in the experiment, as he and the other "participants" gave the obvious, correct answer. On the third trial, all the confederates would start giving the same wrong answer. There were 18 trials in total and the confederates answered incorrectly for 12 of them. These 12 were known as the "critical trials. " Seventy five percent conformed at least once, 5% conformed every time, and when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the question

Milgram's Experiment

One of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology was carried out by Stanley Milgram (1963). Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. After the holocost Milgram wanted to test peoples obedience. The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX). Milgram wanted to know how far people would go when following orders 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. Conclusion: Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.

Triarchic theory of intelligence

Sternberg's definition of human intelligence is "(a) mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-world environments relevant to one's life" (Sternberg, 1985, p. 45), which means that intelligence is how well an individual deals with environmental changes throughout their lifespan. Sternberg's theory comprises three parts: componential, experiential, and practical. The metacomponents are executive processes used in problem solving and decision making that involve the majority of managing our mind. erformance components, are the processes that actually carry out the actions the metacomponents dictate. , knowledge-acquisition components, are used in obtaining new information