The study of individuals in groups and group behavior has been a core of social psychology since its inception in the early 1900s. One of the first experiments in social psychology was considering the effects of the presence of others on performance. The authors examine this phenomenon as well as group communication, task performance in groups such as problem-solving and decision-making, and leadership characteristics and styles. This experiment yielded results that intrigued psychologist and it would lead to the further development of group behavior in the future.

The definition of group that is used in most research is "people who are interdependent and have potential for mutual interaction, influencing one a

A group of eight individuals (one subject and seven confederates) sat in a room and verbally stated which of three unequal lines matched a given line. The subject was seated so that he made his verbal judgment last. In most cases the confederates and subject agreed, but in certain cases the confederates all agreed on a wrong answer. The "majority effect" was measured as the % of responses that erroneously conformed to the majority. They also tried to judge whether the subject was aware of the majority effect on him and why they acceded to group opinion. They also watched the reaction of the subject when the experiment was revealed.

The study of behavior in groups is an area in which a lot of experiments have been preformed. One of the most famous is Asch (1951) about the tendency of people to agree with others when unanimously gave the wrong answer to a problem that had an obvious right answer.

Through the work of Asch and Le Bon I am better able to understand the extreme personalities that emerge in crow behaviors. When deindividuation sets in the responsibility is deferred from the individual's conscience and they will perform tasks that they would normally find immoral and wrong. This of course does not make it right for an individual to do so but at least it gives a conceivable reason for individuals to act in such a manner.

About one third of the responses conformed to the erroneous majority (compared to almost no errors in the control group). Some subjects always defied the group, and some always went along with them. 25% were completely independent, 33% were mor

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Bon Asch's, Le Bon, Los Angeles, Trade Center, mob behavior, le bon, , wrong answer, majority effect, erroneous majority, social psychology,
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