Imagine yourself in the following situation: You sign up for a psychology experiment, and on a specified date you and nine others whom you think are also subjects arrive and are seated at a table in a small room.
You don’t know it at the time, but the nine others are actually associates (planted subjects) of the experimenter (they know about the experiment), and their behaviour has been carefully scripted.
You’re the only real subject.
The experimenter arrives and tells you that the study in which you are about to participate concerns people’s visual judgments.
He places two cards before you. The card on the left contains one vertical line. The card on the right displays three lines of varying length.
He 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.
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On some occasions, all or a majority of other “subjects” unanimously choose the wrong line. It is clear to you that they are wrong, but they have all 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?
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