Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Experiment: artificial bringing about of an event or artificial creation of a state for testing a hypothesis. Experiments can lead to the reformulation of the initial hypotheses and the reformulation of theories. See also theories, measuring, science, hypotheses, Bayesianism, confirmation, events, paradigm change, reference systems._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Serge Moscovici on Experiments - Dictionary of Arguments
Haslam I 94 Experiment/Moscovici: (Moscovici et al. 1969(1)): In these ‘blue-green’ experiments, groups of up to six naïve participants sat in front of a screen and viewed a series of blue slides that varied in their light intensity. After each slide, each participant was asked, in turn, to name aloud the colour of that slide. When all the participants had named the colour of the slide, the next slide was presented. Under these conditions, virtually everybody called the slides ‘blue’, showing that they were perceived as being unambiguously blue. However, in some experimental conditions, a numerical minority within the group (two of the six group members) were confederates of the experimenter and gave pre-agreed responses. In this case they replied ‘green’ to the slides – a response that was clearly different from that of the naïve participants. Results: The key finding of the study was that having a minority consistently calling the blue slides ‘green’ in this way resulted in an increase in the number of times that the naïve answers also called these slides ‘green’. Specifically, while less than 1% of participants (actually 0.25%) called them green in a control condition where participants were not exposed to the views of any confederates, now 8.42% did. Minorities: Contrary to the idea that people always conform to a majority (as might be expected based on the earlier Asch studies (Asch 1951(2), 1952(3), 1955(4)), the studies thus show that a numerical minority is able to change the judgments of a majority. >Social influence/Moscovici, >Conversion theory/Moscovici. Haslam I 99 Results/experiment/Moscovici: [the] afterimage studies suggest that a numerical minority was able to produce a genuine change in perception, as shown by changes in afterimage scores. However, a numerical majority was not able to produce the same perceptual change. In this way, the results for the latent measure (afterimage colour) seem to provide support for the claim that a minority can produce change on a latent/unconscious level. >Conversion theory/Moscovici. [The studies] provided the first evidence to support the idea that majorities and minorities exerted influence through different processes that lead to different outcomes. Haslam I 103 Method: In the afterimage studies, source status (majority vs. minority) is manipulated by false feedback from previous participants’ responses. Given that the confederate’s responses are likely to be seen as extremely unusual (calling blue slides ‘green’), it would seem to be extremely difficult to convince participants in the majority condition that over 80% of people also see the slides as green. Indeed, this might be the reason why those in the majority condition did not show reliable levels of conformity at the manifest level (slide judgment). >Method/Moscovici, >Moscovici/psychological theories, >Minorities, >Majorities, >S. Asch. 1. Moscovici, S., Lage, E. and Naffrechoux, M. (1969) ‘Influence of a consistent minority on the response of a majority in a color perception task’, Sociometry, 32: 365–80. 2. Asch, S.E. (1951) ‘Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment’, in H. Guetzkow (ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press. pp. 177–90. 3. Asch, S.E. (1952) Social Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 4. Asch, S.E. (1955) ‘Opinions and social pressure’, Scientific American, 193: 31–5. Robin Martin and Miles Hewstone, “Minority Influence. Revisiting Moscovici’s blue-green afterimage studies”, in: Joanne R. Smith and S. Alexander Haslam (eds.) 2017. Social Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies. London: Sage Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Moscovici, Serge Haslam I S. Alexander Haslam Joanne R. Smith Social Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies London 2017 |
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> Counter arguments against Moscovici
> Counter arguments in relation to Experiments
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-16