PSYC 315 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: The Need, Social Proof, The Sequence
15 Sep 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Result is that people converge their answers because they want to be correct in their final answer. The light was actually not moving at all. We think the light is moving because we don"t have a stable visual reference point with which to anchor the position of the light- so we see it wavering back and forth. Used the autokinetic effect because he wanted the situation to be ambiguous: the autokinetic effect is experienced differently by different people. Some see lots of movement and some not much at all. Results indicate that people were using each other as a source of information, coming to believe that the group estimate was the correct one: informational social influence can lead to private acceptance. People will naturally turn to each other out of uncertainty, to see how they should be acting or responding in a crisis: gustav le bon. First researcher to document how emotions and behavior can rapidly spread through a crowd.
