Do We Really Think for Ourselves?: a Naturalistic Research Experiment in Conformity and Heuristic-Based Thinking

Abstract

This experiment is a variation of Asch’s (1970) Line Study. Because human beings are innately social, we have the propensity to alter our way of thinking to match others’. Two alternative theoretical explanations—our tendency to conform in social situations and our brain’s tendency to resort to heuristics—may explain this phenomenon. In order to test these theories, I adopted a naturalistic approach. The experimenter posed a simple mathematic equation in multiple naturalistic social settings with a confederate nearby. The experimenter would answer her own question with an incorrect answer, and the confederate would confirm that answer, thereby creating an environment conducive to conformity. If a participant contradicted the experimenter, the experimenter and the confederate would argue in favor of the incorrect answer. The experimenter’s hypothesis is as follows: when a participant is provided an incorrect answer to a simple mathematic equation, he or she will accept that answer either due to heuristic-based thinking or because of mankind’s tendency to conform in social situations. Participants’ responses were categorized as heuristic-based thinking or as conformity largely because of their latency (or lack thereof). While the resulting data indicate that the hypothesis was incorrect for the majority of participants, 36% of participants used heuristics and 43% considered conforming when put under pressure by the confederate and