Submitted by Amateur_Validator t3_ycq9p8 in todayilearned
"There are...FOUR...LIGHTS!"
Did they add any reward for getting it right? Mob conformity is a sound baseline but people will stab each other over a discounted tv.
If you liked this google Moscovici, the father not the son, he decised an experiment to prove minority influence was a thing.
Happens a lot with opinions on political matters.
I mean that seems sensible.
If I'm in a strange situation, and everyone is doing X even though I don't really understand why yet.. I'll probably do X too, until I do. Frankly, if everyone is jumping off a bridge at the same time, there's probably something actually wrong with the bridge.
Yep. If our old hunter-gatherer ancestor is in unfamiliar territory, and sees that everyone seems to be going a long, inconvenient route that avoids a certain cave entrance, I’m probably better off avoiding it too even if it doesn’t make sense to me.
Usually the common sense, conventional wisdom is correct. But when it misfires, it’s easy for the misfire to perpetuate itself indefinitely.
They occasionally call this "Chesterton's Fence", after a passage from an essay by G.K. Chesterton.
Basically, if you don't see the point of a fence being in a location and want to take it down, that's not a good reason in itself. You need to know why the fence was put up in the first place. Someone had a reason to make the effort to put up the fence, and until you know why you don't know the consequences of taking it down.
That’s different. The concept I mentioned is “social proof” and about individuals instinctively copying the behavior of others. Chesterton’s fence is about not disrupting rules or systems without understanding where the rules came from.
(Ie, I learned about social proof in intro psych, and Chersterton’s fence in law school.)
Except a closer scenario to the test would involve everyone around you walking onto a bridge that is obviously unstable. And you can either think for yourself and act intelligently, or follow the mob
> And you can either think for yourself and act intelligently, or follow the mob
The one problem with "acting intelligently" is that it requires a lot of background information in the situation being considered. For usual situations, you can pick up the necessary background, but for unusual ones you probably don't have time.
"Crowdsourcing" the decision makes a bit of sense there- maybe someone has information and experience that's good and is acting on it, and people near them are following suit.
It's not perfect, of course, but it's not unreasonable.
Depends on the risk-reward. I'd probably still answer the same as the others, even knowing consciously I was conforming. It's because the risk of being 'wrong' is extremely low - I'm not in any danger for answering it wrong, unlike an unstable bridge. I would be really curious why everyone was answering as they did, but caution kind of means to just answer the same and then figure it out safely lately. Conversely, I might suspect some kind of 'individuality test' and then intentionally answer it contrarian, but then I don't really know what's being tested there. I think it's more complex than just 'hurr sheep follow'. If it's literally safer to be in the sheep herd, there's more to it.
Where were you when I was a kid and my mom asked me that?!
I prefer using my own senses to determine my next action. Whatever tho, sheep be sheep
There is a social cost to social nonconformity. Logically in this artificial scenario the cost is moot, but any of us who are not on the spectrum and adequately socialized know there are more important things than being right, especially if the stakes are low. This is just instinctive behaviour for human beings, but it does give insight into why people aren't willing to call out obviously false statements.
I constantly tell younger people on the spectrum that there is a heavy cost to "I don't care what people think!" even in cultures that already celebrate non-conformity. Sad thing is when you're on the spectrum it can take a lot of maturing before you realize how badly you're fucking yourself over.
I'd rather be right than liked
IDK man, its complicated
That's surely works out in technical settings. They have a term for that in programming: "cargo cult programming". Just because the last 4 people did something one way doesn't make it the right way.
If it's a choice between being right or the sheeple liking me I choose right every time. I generally don't like people so it works for me
Sheep don't even protect other sheep, they just hope they aren't the one that gets eaten this time.
After I studied this in high school I made it a point to base my decisions on what I felt was best rather than what the room was saying or doing. I’ve been embarrassed a couple times but more times than not, I’m glad I hold my ground.
This mentality also helped me be okay with my decision to leave the cult I was raised in. Everyone around me was saying that gay marriage was a sin, I just couldn’t see it.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it
Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe
Why don't they do these experiments with people who exhibit immunity to group-think? Or have they, and the results just aren't publicized?
Population selection is a big part of experiments with people.
They very much want a selection of people that accurately represent the whole of the group they are studying. They aren't trying to show the limit of people's abilities like a competition might. They're more interested in understanding how "usual" people work because that's what the world is composed of. Having a better understanding of what the world is composed of helps us make decisions with more foresight. Decisions with more foresight should, on average, be better decisions.
Further on the topic, how would you find people who exhibit group-think immunity? If it's by this same experiment then you're just cherry picking your results. You would need to find some other measure by which to select "group-think immune" people and then have them take the test.
I bet if you picked 3 and 4 star generals for the experiment then compared them to the general population you might get something interesting. However that result would provide information on what sort of people become 3 and 4 star generals rather than about "usual" people.
> Further on the topic, how would you find people who exhibit group-think immunity?
For that matter, how would you get them to participate in the test properly?
Oh, I think you can use the same testing method.
One could argue the group-think people didn't participate because had they been paying attention they would have the right answer. Or is it that they didn't trust themselves?
I mean, assuming people won't participate is kinda... tangential to the issue?
Here you have it
Thank you!
They did. Around 25% of the subjects answered correctly.
Yesterday, I learned how a former US president gained political popularity after losing an election.
Oh piss off. Leave your political circlejerking to a thread where it's actually relevant, or, preferably, another sub entirely.
Amateur_Validator OP t1_itnnm9d wrote
It was found that nearly 75% of the time, participants went along with the group and answered incorrectly. The results show that people are heavily influenced by mob-mentality, and that in real life, where things aren't as clear cut as the length of a line, conformity can be even more significant.