
Gender and Peer Pressure Response
Hard
Can a room full of wrong answers push you to give the same wrong answer? You set up a group of 10 people who are secretly told to choose an obviously incorrect response on purpose. One real participant joins them without knowing.
The group is shown simple shapes and asked to match two that are the same size. The planted members all pick the wrong pair first. Then the real participant answers.
A second question reverses the order so the participant answers before anyone else. You repeat this with 20 male and 20 female participants and compare how often each gender follows the crowd.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that male participants are more affected by peer pressure than female participants.
Method & Materials
You will select 25 male and 25 female students, and have 10 of them give wrong answers to two questions. The remaining participants will then answer the questions, and you will compare the results.
You will need 25 male students, 25 female students, a whiteboard, a classroom, and a black marker pen.
Results
The results showed that the male participants were more likely to give the wrong answer when their peers did, compared to the female participants. This supports the hypothesis that male participants are more affected by peer pressure than female participants.
Why do this project?
This science project is interesting because it looks at how gender affects how people respond to peer pressure, which is something that many people experience in their daily lives.
Also Consider
Consider repeating the experiment to compare the effects of peer pressure among different age groups, or conduct a survey to see how peer pressure affects people's habits and behavior.
Full project details
Additional information and source material for this project are available below.Related videos
These videos explain the science behind this project and demonstrate key concepts used in the experiment.
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