{"id":48028,"date":"2012-06-15T11:30:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-15T16:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=48028"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:15:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:15:52","slug":"conformity-to-innocuous-social-norms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/15\/conformity-to-innocuous-social-norms\/","title":{"rendered":"Conformity to Innocuous Social Norms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Solomon Asch was a social psychologist famous for his experiments in conformity. \u00a0In 1962 he collaborated with Candid Camera, a TV show, to show just how easy it is to\u00a0reverse an innocuous social norm: the direction one stands in an elevator.<\/p>\n

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Does it still work? \u00a0Watch this University of South Florida replication:<\/p>\n

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Asch did many such experiments, including showing that people will agree with others when asked a simple question, even if they suspect everyone else is wrong<\/a>. \u00a0The implications are obvious. \u00a0Social pressure is incredibly powerful and we’ll do things that seem pretty bizarre just to fit in. \u00a0How one stands in an elevator, of course, is a trivial matter and has almost no consequences short of feeling funny. \u00a0Imagine how much we’ll be willing to do when the consequences are even a little bit greater.<\/p>\n

For more great social psychology: entering a theater full of bikers<\/a>, doing nothing<\/a>, change blindness<\/a>, norm breaching<\/a>, Milgram’s obedience experiment<\/a> (plus the original flyer<\/a>).<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solomon Asch was a social psychologist famous for his experiments in conformity. \u00a0In 1962 he collaborated with Candid Camera, a TV show, to show just how easy it is to\u00a0reverse an innocuous social norm: the direction one stands in an elevator. Does it still work? \u00a0Watch this University of South Florida replication: Asch did many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-48028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48028"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58335,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48028\/revisions\/58335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}