Have you ever wondered why men wore wigs in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries? Why have tattoos become so popular? Why did everyone get spinners a few years ago? We like to think that we are unique, and our thoughts, feelings and desires are original. But is it really so?
Experienced
In 1932, Arthur Jenness conducted one of the first experiments designed to investigate social conformity – a change in a person’s behavior or opinion under the influence of real or imagined pressure from other people. He placed 811 beans in a container. The participants in the experiment anonymously wrote down how many they thought were in the container of beans. Then the subjects were divided into groups, and almost all changed their initial assumption.
A few years later, the Turkish psychologist Muzafer Sherif conducted another experiment. The subjects were led one at a time into a dark room. Everyone looked at the luminous dot, which, as it seemed to them, was moving, but in fact remained in place. The subjects were asked how far they thought the point had moved.
Afterwards, the participants were grouped into groups of three, and the majority changed their answer, agreeing with the opinion of the group. When later the researchers asked them this question again, most of the subjects gave a group answer, and not their own. Later, in the 1950s, Solomon Ash found that 75% of people changed their minds about the line’s supposed length based on the group’s responses.
We like to be deceived that our experiences and ideas are unique, when in fact we are all just copying each other.
The researcher Paul Kassin, who discovered the phenomenon of false confessions, put subjects at computers. He said that the machine would break down if the ALT key was pressed. In fact, the breakdown was programmed anyway. As a result, only one person pressed the key, and 25% of the participants confessed to the “deed”. When the experimenter started blaming everyone for pressing the key, the confession rate jumped to 80%.
The TV show Brain Games has shown a similar effect. The subject was in a waiting room full of people. She was surprised to find that everyone was getting up when she heard the horn, and she began to get up too. Moreover, she continued to do this, even when she was alone in the waiting room!
Illusion of independence
So are we as independent and original as we used to think? Where is the line between our opinion and the opinion of the group?
Take, for example, another experiment done in 1973 by Ken and Mary Gergen. Students, boys and girls, were divided into two groups and taken to two rooms: dark and lighted. The subjects, who found themselves in a lighted room, talked a lot, almost did not move and did not approach each other.
There were fewer conversations in the second room, but people walked a lot and many tried to touch each other, and some even began to hug and kiss. In other words, they did things that they would not normally have dared to do. Darkness changed them, and light would make them respect someone else’s personal space again.
The truth is that we are changed by the people around us, our social environment. They are the ones who have the greatest impact on us. The thoughts and feelings of others become ours, whether we realize it or not.
How Science Explains It
The prefrontal cortex is the area that processes our belief, “I think this powdered wig/this tattoo really suits me.” But he also processes the judgment: “My friends think this wig/this tattoo really suits me.” Therefore, what we think and do is closely related to what others think and do.
So where do we end and where do others begin? Nobody knows. We enjoy being fooled into believing that our experiences and ideas are unique, when in reality we are all just copying each other.