Unsettling Adventures with Middle Schoolers

      I thought it was very interesting how throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, all of the patients seemed to follow whatever McMurphy was doing. When he was rebelling against the nurse, they would too. When he was following the nurses orders, they would too. I also realized how this applies to real life. 

      Last Friday, my friend and I had to go to the Middle School to perform a social conformity experiment for our Psychology class on the seventh and eighth graders. We would pick three students first, and tell them three questions we were going to ask them that were generally easy: What is 6*7? What is the capital of New York? What part of speech are the words "to jump"? We would then tell these students that we were going to call one more student over and ask the same three questions, but this time the three accomplices would answer wrong answers together: 49, Buffalo, adjective. Then we would see whether the fourth student would conform the the wrong answer, or stick up for the right one. 

      Through this experiment, we were able to distinguish the "McMurphies" of the school, versus the "patients." The overwhelming amount of "patients" where unsettling. So many middle schoolers simply went along with the wrong answer, after a quick glance around at their peers for approval. In on instance, we started with the fourth student to see if hearing all the students say the same, wrong answer after him would affect his reaction. It did. The fourth student actually went back and changed his correct answer from the beginning! Seeing this happened showed me just how powerful social conformity is, and even though this made me sympathize more with the "patients" in the novel, it also made me disgusted to realize how people don't stick up for themselves.

       However, I can not overlook that there were people who stuck up for the right answer. These "McMurphies" gave me hope that maybe society isn't as conformist as it seems, and there are those that are able to break the mold, and stick up for what they believe in.