This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
"The influence of peer pressure is best illustrated by a study of teenagers, conducted by Ruth W. Berenda. She and her associates brought ten adolescents into a room and told them they were going to study their perception. To test this ability, they planned to hold up cards on which three lines were drawn. The lines were marked A, B, and C and were of three different lengths. As the cards were held before the class, the researcher would point to A, B, and C consecutively, asking the students to raise their hands when the pointer was directed at the longest line.
The instructions were simple and were repeated. 'Raise your hand when we point to the longest line.' What one student didn't know, however, is that the other nine had been brought in earlier and told to vote for the second longest line. The purpose was to test the effect of group pressure on that lonely individual.
The experiment began with nine teen-agers voting for the wrong line. The stooge would typically glance around, frown in confusion, and slip up his hand with the group. The instructions were repeated and the next card was raised. Time after time, the self-conscious stooge would sit there saying a short line is longer than a long line, simply because he lacked the courage to challenge the group. This conformity occured in about seventy-five percent of the cases. Berenda concluded that, 'Some people had rather be president than right.'"
Get your own Free Home Page