I need help to find what I need to research for the science fair?

Question

I got the idea from a show on discovery channel. 5 people enter a room, 4 of them being actors. They are shown a series of lines, and asked which two are the same length. There is an obvious answer, but the 4 actors purposly pick the wrong long, eventually making the 'real' test subject doubt him/herself. What sort of thing will I need to research?

Answer 1

This is an example of the Asch conformity experiments which were conducted in the early 1950s. You might want to look at those original studies and how the issue of conformity has been studied. For example, the Asch studies found that if the non-actor had just one other who gave the "correct" answer, she or he would be much more likely to also give the correct response.The more famous conformity experiments were conducted by Milgram. These would probably not be allowed today because of ethical reasons (he had subjects believing they were giving electric shocks to "actors" and it caused a great deal of trauma to some of the subjects). You might want to research his work as background. As well, you could look at the changes in what is allowed "ethically" by psychologists conducting research. This could be an interesting sidebar to your "study."