Academic literature on the topic 'Asch conformity experiments'

This article offers a new approach to Asch's (1956) influential studies relating physical and social perception. Drawing on research on values, conversational pragmatics, cross-cultural comparisons, and negotiation, the authors challenge the normative assumptions that have led psychologists to interpret the studies in terms of conformity. A values-pragmatics account is offered that suggests that participants attempt to realize multiple values (e.g., truth, social solidarity) in an inherently frustrating situation by tacitly varying patterns of dissent and agreement to communicate larger scale truths and cooperative intentions. Alternative theories (e.g., embarrassment, attribution) are compared and empirical implications of the values-pragmatics account are evaluated. The possibility of multiple strategies promoting group survival and the proper role of moral evaluation in social psychological research are considered.

A fundamental aspect of society is the exchange and discussion of opinions between individuals, occurring in mediums and situations as varied as company boardrooms, elementary school classrooms and online social media. This thesis studies several mathematical models of how an individual’s opinion(s) evolves via interaction with others in a social network, developed to reflect and capture different socio-psychological processes that occur during the interactions. In the first part, and inspired by Solomon E. Asch’s seminal experiments on conformity, a novel discrete-time model of opinion dynamics is proposed, with each individual having both an expressed and a private opinion on the same topic. Crucially, an individual’s expressed opinion is altered from the individual’s private opinion due to pressures to conform to the majority opinion of the social network. Exponential convergence of the opinion dynamical system to a unique configuration is established for general networks. Several conclusions are established, including how differences between an individual’s expressed and private opinions arise, and how to estimate disagreement among the private opinions at equilibrium. Asch’s experiments are revisited and re-examined, and then it is shown that a few extremists can create “pluralistic ignorance”, where people believe there is majority support for a position but in fact the position is privately rejected by the majority of individuals! The second part builds on the recently proposed discrete-time DeGroot–Friedkin model, which describes the evolution of an individual’s self-confidence (termed social power) in his/her opinion over the discussion of a sequence of issues. Using nonlinear contraction analysis, exponential convergence to a unique equilibrium is established for networks with constant topology. Networks with issue-varying topology (which remain constant for any given issue) are then studied; exponential convergence to a unique limiting trajectory is established. In a social context, this means that each individual forgets his/her initial social power exponentially fast; in the limit, his/her social power for a given issue depends only on the previously occurring sequence of dynamic topology. Two further related works are considered; a network modification problem, and a different convergence proof based on Lefschetz Fixed Point Theory. In the final part, a continuous-time model is proposed to capture simultaneous discussion of logically interdependent topics; the interdependence is captured by a “logic matrix”. When no individual remains attached to his/her initial opinion, a necessary and sufficient condition for the network to reach a consensus of opinions is provided. This condition depends on the interplay between the network interactions and the logic matrix; if the network interactions are too strong when compared to the logical couplings, instability can result. Last, when some individuals remain attached to their initial opinions, sufficient conditions are given for opinions to converge to a state of persistent disagreement.

Abstract Nanoparticles have demonstrated their capacity to increase emulsion stability by forming what is known as a Pickering emulsion, which is predicted to improve EOR processes by improving conformity control. The goal of this work is to develop a novel way of beneficially utilizing the main waste product from coal power-generation plants - fly ash - by generating fly ash nanoparticle-stabilized emulsions for improved mobility control, especially under high-salinity conditions. First, the ball-milling method was used to decrease the grain size of fly ash, which was too big for injection into reservoirs. Second, fly ash nanoparticles were used to measure the synergy between nanoparticles and surfactants in the creation of oil-in-brine emulsions. Third, the emulsion stability was tested using a microscope and a rheometer with three different surfactants (cationic, nonionic, and anionic). Finally, oil replacement experiments were conducted using intra-formation heterogeneous cores to investigate the recovery enhancement effect of in situ injection of fly ash nanoparticles and cationic surfactant (CS). Thermally treated fly ash (TTFA) nanoparticles with an average size of 150 nm were produced using nano-milling and thermal treatment techniques. The use of either a cationic or nonionic surfactant in conjunction with nanoparticles resulted in strong and stable emulsions. The cationic surfactant had the greatest synergy, while the anionic surfactant had the least, indicating that electrostatic interactions with the surfactant and the liquid/liquid interface were key factors. The in-situ emulsion formed by the fly ash nanoparticles and the cationic surfactant (FA-CS) produced an additional 8.5 % of the original oil in place (OOIP) recovery after waterflooding. This indicates that the emulsion has better mobility control performance and higher crude oil recovery. This study not only has the potential to minimize the amount of surfactant used for emulsion-based EOR mobility control of fly ash nanoparticles but also to sequester fly ash in the subsurface strata.