Jenness (1932)

AIM: To examine the idea of ISI and whether an individual would change their belief in an ambiguous situation.

METHOD: Jenness created an ambiguous situation where participants (26 students) were required to individually estimate the number of white beans in a glass bottle, which contained 811 beans. After stating their individual estimates, the participants were placed in groups of three, where they were given an opportunity to discuss their answers. After a brief discussion, the participants were asked to provide a group estimate. Finally, the participants were given another opportunity to individually estimate the number of white beans in the bottle, to see whether they wanted to revise their original estimates.

RESULTS: The average estimates before and after, for both males and females, can be found below.

CONCLUSION: These results support the idea of informational social influence, as the participants changed their original estimates because they believed that the group was more likely to be right. As the original estimate and post-discussion estimates were produced in private this rules out the idea of NSI as the participants were unlikely to be conforming to ‘fit in’ as none of the other participants would have seen their post-discussion response.