group pressure and conformity

Group pressure and conformity is a pretty powerful force and it is something that is tough to deal with. The book gives a couple of examples such as the Stanford prison experiment, where the students who are assigned as guards become abusive to the prisoner students. Another one is the standard line test, where six people are asked to tell which line is the same length as the standard one. The five control subjects intentionally give the wrong answer, while 75% of the time the test subject just goes along with what those five say say, even though it is clearly wrong. This is tough to deal with because of how important it is to be a part of the group, especially in a work environment. It is also critical to follow your bosses’ orders and work the way he wants things done. Very often I’ve found that this means doing something different than I would normally do because I see the truth differently in certain situations.