It is well-known that when an individual joins a group, he tends to accept the group's standards of behavior and thinking. Many illustrations could be given of this from everyday life, but what is of particular interest to psychologists is the extent to which people's judgments and opinions can be changed as a result of group pressure, Asch and others noticed that people in a group will agree to statements that are contrary to the evidence of their senses. It would be a mistake to think that only particularly docile people are chosen to take part in experiments of this type. Usually highly intelligent and independent people are used. In a typical experiment, this is what may happen.    The experimenter asks for volunteers to join a group which is investigating visual perception .The victims are not, therefore, aware of the real purpose of the experiment. Each volunteer is taken to a room where he finds a group of about seven people who are cooperating with the experimenter. The group is shown a standard card which contains a single line. They are then asked to look at a second card. This has three lines on it. One is obviously longer than the line on the first card; one is shorter and one the same length. They have to say which line on the second card is the same length as the line on the standard card. The other members of the group answer first but what the volunteer does not know is that they have been told to pick one of the wrong lines. When his turn comes, he is faced with the unanimous opinion of the rest of the group-all the others have chosen line A but he quite clearly sees line B as correct. What will be do? According to Asch, more than half of the vietims chosen will change their opinion. What is equally surprising is that, when interviewed about their answers, most explained that they knew the group choice was incorrect but that they gave in to the pressure of the group because they thought they must be suffering from an optical illusion , or because they were afraid of being different. People who are usually chosen to take part in the experiments are_.
independent easily guided foolish capable of reasoning