Introduction
People who suffer from mental disorders are one of the most
stigmatized groups in today’s society. Others who are unaware of what exactly a
mental illness is classify them as dangerous and unpredictable. These stigmas
lead not only to a personal effect on those with mental illness, but because of
reduction of perceived negative stigma there has been a reduction in research
in this area.
One of the most common
mental disorders is bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder causes a person to go
into deep depressive moods and then switch to a high almost erotic mood, and
emotions appear to be unbalanced. Approximately ten million people in the
United States are diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
One psychologist, Solomon Asch, did a variety of experiments based on
the idea of group conformity. One of his variations of the famous conformity
experiments had a confederate be a partner to the actual participant this
“partner” would always provide the correct answer. During this variation the
conformity rate decreased from 33% to 5%.
The idea behind this
study is to determine if having a model claiming to be bipolar would sway the
participant to conform to the larger group, which is stating an incorrect
answer. This variation used scenarios presenting a social interaction in which
there was a person being bullied and the participant would have to state if
they thought bullying was present. The reason for this is because bullying is a
growing epidemic in the United States is bullying. In 2009 nearly eleven
percent of students had reported being physically bullied and twenty percent
had admitted being verbally bullied. One aspect with bullying is group
conformity. If a group is involved in bullying an individual may realize their
actions are hurtful, but will continue to conform to the group instead of
taking a strong moral stance. This may occur because the individual fears
becoming the next victim of bullying.