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The Cash paradigm is an experimental technique, which Is now note because of the many studies and experiments that Solomon Cash did for his conformity studies. The purpose of this study is basically proving weather the people say what they really think or Just conform with other people’s answers. He tricked the participants who thought they were taking part to a study of visual perception then, Cash made them ay which one of the comparison lines matched the standard one.
This trial Is repeated 18 times and although the length and the thickness of the lines change in each trial, the purpose does not change. Because this task it’s extremely easy, when the participants are doing it without first listening to other people’ answers they are right at 99% but when they come in a situation where there are many people that answer before them, saying a different answer than the one they ad in mind, they rather conform to the mass and say as the other people did.
In the main condition of the study, among all the people who are taking part in it, only one is a genuine participant who is always last to say his answer. Despite the fact that the genuine participant does not know that the others participants are told to answer in a certain way. The set of 18 trials was repeated several times, testing a different genuine participant each time. When we get to the results, in the trials, 12 out of 18 eave the wrong answer.
The majority of the people have conformed not to appear different. In fact, they kept saying the wrong answer given by the majority of the people in almost 37% of the trials. 76% conformed on one trial, minimum. 24% only, remained faithful on what they believed the right answer was. When they experiment had come to an end, Cash asked all the participants why they conformed with other people’s answer and they mostly all said they wanted to avoid criticism, disapproval and they wanted to fit in the group.