Jump on the Bandwagon or Not The Bandwagon Effect A bandwagon is a wagon which carries the band in a parade or a circus. The phrase "jump on the bandwagon" first appeared in American politics in 1848 when Dan Rice, a popular circus clown of the time, used his bandwagon and its music to gain attention for his political campaign. 4. ( ) Dan Rice 1848. As his campaign became more successful, other politicians strove for a seat on the bandwagon, hoping to be associated with his success.. Later, bandwagons became common in campaigns, and the term "the bandwagon effect" was coined.,. It refers to the tendency of people to go along with what others do or think regardless of their own beliefs, just hoping to be on the winner's side.,,. The bandwagon effect is an example of conformity and groupthink.. 1
Fitting In: Solomon Asch's Experiment : Solomon Asch If it seems that people are prone to jumping on the bandwagon and conforming to the majority view, can we prove scientifically that they really are? How can we test and account for people's tendency toward conformity? People seem to be prone to jumping on the bandwagon,?? Imagine that you are one of the subjects participating in the famous laboratory experiment that social psychologist Solomon Asch devised in the 1950s. 1950, Solomon Asch. You have signed up for Asch's psychology experiment, and you and seven others who you think are also subjects are seated at a table. Asch, 7. You do not know it at the time, but the other subjects are actually confederates, whose behavior has been carefully scripted. You are the only real subject.,.. The experimenter tells you that the study in which you are about to participate concerns people's visual judgments. She places two cards before you. The card on the left contains one vertical line. The card on the right displays three vertical lines of varying lengths..... 2
Solomon Asch (1907-1996) is one of the most influential social psychologists, who blended natural and social science. He is most well known for his conformity experiments, which demonstrate the influence of group pressure on people's opinions. Solomon Asch(1907~1996),.,. The experimenter asks all of you, one at a time, to choose which of the three lines on the right card matches the length of the line on the left card.. The task is repeated several times with different cards, and the confederates keep choosing the wrong line. It is clear to you that they are wrong, but they have consistently given the same answer.,.. What would you do? Would you go along with the majority opinion, or would you "stick to your guns" and trust your own eyes??? Asch repeated the experiment many times with college student subjects in groups of 5 to 10, and to his surprise, about one third of the subjects were swayed to conform to the group, going along with the clearly erroneous majority. Asch 5 10, 3 1. 3
Why did the subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe in their conforming answers but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar."?,,. A few of them even said that they really did believe the group's answers to be correct. Many of those who gave the right answer were clearly uncomfortable doing so because they chose not to fit in with the group after all. This research suggests that people tend to conform to the majority.... Of course there are personality and cultural predictors of conformity as well. People with lower self-confidence tend to conform more, whereas those who have higher ego strength conform less..,. People from cultures that tend to be more individualistic feel less pressure to conform than those from collectivistic cultures.. 4
Changing the Majority View: Serge Moscovici's : Serge Moscovici Experiment In Asch's experiment, it was the minority that was conforming to the majority. Would it be also possible for the minority to influence the majority? Asch.? Serge Moscovici, another social psychologist, attempted to answer this question by developing an experiment designed to monitor the impact that a minority group could have on the majority group. Serge Moscovici. Interestingly, what he conducted was a re-run of Asch's experiment, but he did it in reverse. Instead of one subject amongst a majority of confederates, he placed two confederates together with four genuine subjects., Asch,.,. The participants were shown 36 slides which were clearly different shades of blue and asked to state the color of each slide out loud. 36. Serge Moscovici (1925 -) is a social psychologist, whose research focus was on group psychology. Criticizing the previous research on conformity, he investigated the effects of minority influence. Serge Moscovici(1925~ ),.,. 5
In the first part of the experiment, the two confederates answered green for all slides. In the second part of the experiment, they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.,.,. Did the responses of the two confederates influence those of the four subjects? In other words, was there minority influence? Here are the results.?,?. In the first part of the experiment, where the confederates consistently answered green, 8.42% of the subjects' answers were green. This fell to 1.25% for green in the second part of the experiment, where the confederates gave inconsistent answers., 8.42%. 1.25%. The results show that minority influence did occur, and that it was potentially a valuable issue to study - to focus on why some people might follow minority opinion and resist group pressure.. Indeed, they suggest that, in the face of the minority's persistent claim, the majority may be led to re-examine their position and, in some cases, to change their views eventually.,,. 6
~ Minority influence is exemplified in the film Twelve Angry Men, where twelve jurors have to decide over the guilt or innocence of a defendant charged with murder. <12 >, 12. At the outset of the film, a single juror in the murder trial favors acquittal, while the other 11 jurors favor conviction., 11. Though he is facing the majority who oppose him, he does not give in to group pressure. He makes his case convincingly on the basis of the given evidence and painstakingly manages to persuade the other jurors one by one.,.. By the end of the film, they unanimously reach the "not guilty" verdict. Though this is a fictional example, it shows that the majority may be persuaded to convert their views by a minority, or even by a single person.,.,,. It is amazing to know that while we are social beings often vulnerable to group pressure, we also have the potential to influence the majority.,. Have you ever found yourself jumping on the bandwagon? Would you be courageous enough to hold onto your own view and change the majority opinion??? 7