Psychology Commons^™

Do As We Do, Not As You Think: The Effect Of Group Influence On Individual Choices In A Virtual Environment, Rebecca Rayburn-Reeves, Jennifer Wu, Sara Wilson, Beth Kraemer, Philipp Kraemer

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

Second Life (SL) is a virtual world application that enables users to create virtual representations of themselves and interact with other users. SL is increasingly being used to study important psychological questions. The current project sought to replicate within SL Asch’s (1951) classic finding of group influence, in which participants often respond in accordance with choices expressed by other members of a group, regardless of the accuracy of those choices. Participants were given a series of perceptual judgment trials, in which they chose one of three stimulus alternatives that matched the length of a target stimulus. Participants were tested either …