Understanding discipline in the uniformed public services
Conformity, Obedience and Authority – P4
On the 26/05/2017, I, along with my team of three others (Abbie, Ellie and Ollie) partcipated in organising and
completng a simulaton of Asch’s conformity experiment. I directed the experiment. It involved about ten
PowerPoint slides with a subject line, X – and three other lines, A, B and C. To begin with, I welcomed an
unsuspectng individual from another course into the room of the experiment. He sat down alongside Abbie,
Ellie and Ollie. I then brought up an example slide on the PowerPoint, and explained that we were doing an
experiment to aid us in an assignment on team leading. I showed everyone what they had to do – simply
match the subject line X, to either line A, B, or C. One of the lines was a perfect match to X and the other two
were similar lengths, but not quite the same. The idea of the experiment being, that on some of the slides, my
team members would answer correctly, and on the others they would answer incorrectly in order to see if the
person from the other group (Tom) would conform and answer incorrectly too.
We worked out which slides we would provide incorrect answers to prior to the experiment, by putng
transitons on our slides. If the slide transitoned to the right, my team provided the ‘right’ answer. If it
transitoned to the lef, my team provided the wrong answer, and hoped Tom would conform. The experiment
partly succeeded. Tom conformed to the frst incorrect answer my team gave; he stutered as if he was
thinking about it, and went along with the incorrect answer anyway. However following this, he provided his
own answers and didn’t conform at all.
The experiment went as well as it could have. Whether Tom conformed or not was out of our control, but we
did our best to be convincing and provided the correct or incorrect answers as planned. If I was to do this
experiment again, I would not just use lines as a means of testng, but mix shapes in with them too. This might
make things a litle harder and push the subject to conform a litle more.
1
Conformity, Obedience and Authority – P4
On the 26/05/2017, I, along with my team of three others (Abbie, Ellie and Ollie) partcipated in organising and
completng a simulaton of Asch’s conformity experiment. I directed the experiment. It involved about ten
PowerPoint slides with a subject line, X – and three other lines, A, B and C. To begin with, I welcomed an
unsuspectng individual from another course into the room of the experiment. He sat down alongside Abbie,
Ellie and Ollie. I then brought up an example slide on the PowerPoint, and explained that we were doing an
experiment to aid us in an assignment on team leading. I showed everyone what they had to do – simply
match the subject line X, to either line A, B, or C. One of the lines was a perfect match to X and the other two
were similar lengths, but not quite the same. The idea of the experiment being, that on some of the slides, my
team members would answer correctly, and on the others they would answer incorrectly in order to see if the
person from the other group (Tom) would conform and answer incorrectly too.
We worked out which slides we would provide incorrect answers to prior to the experiment, by putng
transitons on our slides. If the slide transitoned to the right, my team provided the ‘right’ answer. If it
transitoned to the lef, my team provided the wrong answer, and hoped Tom would conform. The experiment
partly succeeded. Tom conformed to the frst incorrect answer my team gave; he stutered as if he was
thinking about it, and went along with the incorrect answer anyway. However following this, he provided his
own answers and didn’t conform at all.
The experiment went as well as it could have. Whether Tom conformed or not was out of our control, but we
did our best to be convincing and provided the correct or incorrect answers as planned. If I was to do this
experiment again, I would not just use lines as a means of testng, but mix shapes in with them too. This might
make things a litle harder and push the subject to conform a litle more.
1
