Besides, there is the famous Asch experiment (among many others), which I wrote about exactly five years ago: "
Studies in Conformity, Generating Consensus, and Why You Are Not Adults." And, for pity's sake, my darlings, the Asch experiment was conducted in
1951. The subjects were asked to identify which of several lines was the same in length as another line. The other "subjects" (who were actually participants in the experiment) gave what were obviously wrong answers. Many of the true subjects of the experiment denied the evidence of their own eyes -- and
agreed with the wrong answers:
To Asch's surprise, 37 of the 50 subjects conformed to the majority at least once, and 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the 12 trials. When faced with a unanimous wrong answer by the other group members, the mean subject conformed on 4 of the 12 trials. Asch was disturbed by these results: "The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black. This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct."
...
Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to be liked by the group and because they believe the group is better informed than they are.
I went on to note:
The pathetic truth is that most people fear genuine independence more than they fear death itself. So desperate are they for "acceptance" and so fearful of being thought "peculiar," they will deny the evidence of their own eyes and mindlessly repeat the lies and ignorance of others. When it comes to a subject like economics or foreign policy, they think: "Oh, that's so
hard! I can't understand that. I'll just listen to what the 'experts' say. They know best."
If events of the last seven years have demonstrated nothing else at all, they should have made absolutely clear that "experts" are often the very
last people you should look to for guidance.
These are the lessons we are all taught, and that only a very small number of people manage to resist successfully: to throttle any sign of a genuine, vital thought or feeling of our own; to obey the authority figures in our lives without question or hesitation; and to attempt to survive by making ourselves constantly aware of even the subtlest emotional signals from others, especially those whose favor we regard as crucial to our success. For this mode of functioning -- which is the mode of functioning of most people -- the facts relevant to any particular question or controversy
do not matter. What matters, what is of life and death importance in psychological terms, is the view of the group(s) with which we have allied ourselves. And if those we regard as authorities (or "experts") tell us line A is the same length as line D, even when it plainly is not, we will agree with the authorities. We will set aside the evidence of our own eyes, we will ignore what we know with absolute certainty to be true, to avoid the disapproval of those whose acceptance represents our sense of identity and self-worth, and those who are more powerful.
Originally Posted by Banditbandit
Thankfully we have the internet and can readily confirm the possibility/probability (in balance with as much other researched data as possible) of % truth.... IF we are prepared to LOOK.
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I didn't think!!! I experimented!!!
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