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Title: Why so many minds think alike
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/15/social.conformity.brain/
Published: Feb 28, 2009
Author: E. Landau
Post Date: 2009-02-28 07:12:24 by Disgusted
Keywords: None
Views: 156
Comments: 18
(CNN) -- You're in a room with 10 other people who seem to agree on something, but you hold the opposite view. Do you say something? Or do you just go along with the others? Imaging techniques help scientists look at the basis for principles of social psychology in the brain. Decades of research show people tend to go along with the majority view, even if that view is objectively incorrect. Now, scientists are supporting those theories with brain images. A new study in the journal Neuron shows when people hold an opinion differing from others in a group, their brains produce an error signal. A zone of the brain popularly called the "oops area" becomes extra active, while the "reward area" slows down, making us think we are too different. "We show that a deviation from the group opinion is regarded by the brain as a punishment," said Vasily Klucharev, postdoctoral fellow at the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead author of the study. Watch to learn more about the study » Participants, all female, had to rate 222 faces based on physical beauty on a scale from 1 to 8. Afterwards, researchers told each participant either that the average score was higher or that it was lower than her rating. Some participants were told the average rating was equal to her rating. The researchers then chatted with the participant before suddenly asking the participant to do the rating again. Most subjects changed their opinion toward the average. The two leading theories of conformity are that people look to the group because they're unsure of what to do, and that people go along with the norm because they are afraid of being different, said Dr. Gregory Berns, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Berns' research, which he describes in the book "Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently," found that brain mechanisms associated with fear and anxiety do play a part in situations where a person feels his or her opinion goes against the grain. Participants looked at projections of three-dimensional objects, and had to identify which shapes were similar. As with the new study in Neuron, participants tended to shift their opinion to the majority view, although in this case the problems had objectively correct answers. The effect was also more potent in this experiment because actors were in the room to simulate a group with a shared opinion, he said. But brain images revealed participants were not lying just to fit in. Changes in the activation of the visual part of the brain suggest the group opinion actually changed participants' perceptions of what they saw. One reason behind conformity is that, in terms of human evolution, going against the group is not beneficial to survival, Berns said. There is a tremendous survival advantage to being in a community, he said. "Our brains are exquisitely tuned to what other people think about us, aligning our judgments to fit in with the group," Berns said. The most famous experiments in the field were conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s. He found that many people gave incorrect answers about matching lines printed on cards, echoing the incorrect answers of the actors in the room. But unlike Berns' finding that fear and anxiety relate to this effect, Asch saw conformity studies reflections of people's reliance on one another for knowledge of the world, experts say. The darker side of conformity relates to Stanley Milgram's experiments of the 1960s and 1970s, in which most people obeyed orders to deliver electric shocks to an innocent person in the next room. As in these studies, subjects caved into social pressure, presumably going against their own previous moral convictions. The research calls into question decision-making bodies that operate by consensus, Berns said. For example, in the U.S. legal system, many cases are decided by the unanimous judgment of the members of a jury. "You can't separate those judgments from the fact that you have 12 people who have to come to a unanimous decision, and have to conform their opinion to each other, so of course it will distort how they view evidence," he said. "Any type of group decision-making process that does not require unanimous decisions is likely to make a better one," Berns said. "That applies to committees in particular." What does it take to break the conformity effect? Asch talked about the power of the "minority of one." When a unanimous group pressures the individual, that group is weakened as soon as one person breaks off. "Anyone inclined to draw too pessimistic conclusions from this report would do well to remind himself that the capacities for independence are not to be underestimated," Asch wrote in a 1955 "Scientific American" article describing his research. "He may also draw some consolation from a further observation: Those who participated in this challenging experiment agreed nearly without exception that independence was preferable to conformity."
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#1. To: Disgusted, All (#0)
I'll tell you why this happens, in very unscientific terms. It happens because they are weak wimps that care more about what others think of them. If they dont have the balls to stand their ground, then it sucks to be them. It's like those that get tattoos. It used to be a sign of rebellion but now that practically everyone has them, they are now the conformists. I'll get a tat, when no one else has one.
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files
Turtle has no "oops" area. He does have an area, that when dealing with stupid people, becomes active. It is the "I'm right and you're wrong, shut up and don't give me any lip, just listen and do what I tell you, and things will be a whole lot better in your life" ara. Turtle calls it the "IRAYWSUADGMALJLADWITYATWBAWLBIYL" area.
Turtle always enjoys crazy people, although he wonders how they can operate with their heads up their butts.
"Churchill was a Jew, Stalin was a Jew, FDR was a Jew, Jew, Jew, Jews Jew..." Turtle has no use for Jews, but he is not stupid and does not believe nonsense.
Q: Do turtles breath through their butts? Yes, turtles take in Hydrochloric Carbon Dioxide through their penises, but release Oxygen through their alternative vagina to give the ocean a thorough release of air. These going ons occur in their butt, and their penis and vagina connect inside their butt to allow them to reproduct and give birth. Both genders do this. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_turtles_breath_through_their_butts
From Fort Hard Knox Are people conforming to following Barack Obama even though they know it is wrong? Research would suggest that could be the case. The Asch Conformity Experiment is a case in point. Here is a sample question. People were asked to select the line that was exactly like the the one on the left. Thirty-two percent of subjects answered incorrectly if three others in the classroom gave the same wrong answer. This is the Asch Effect.
Anyone who thinks the anti-Semitic FDR was a Jew, or Stalin, is an Agent of Incompetence, Stupid can't be fixed, son.
Obama And Israel’s Plan For Ethnic Cleansing
There is a YouTube video of this very story.
Thanks
Thanks IITL. Great material.
Indeed. One of the things I was taught by my folks was that I should always stand my ground if I thought I was right, no matter if I stood alone. Because there are times that you will be or it will seem to be the case.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. You were taught it, just as I was. Looks like they arent teaching that anymore. Sometimes I think I was born 100 years too late. Going along just to get along sounds so pathetic. It's pathetic beyond my ability to put into words. And you are very right. Sometimes it gets lonely. Not a bad thing IMO. It sure beats hanging around these cowards.
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files
I bet you there are a lot of people, especially people who post here, who think they were born "out of time." I have thought that more than once.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
#2. To: Disgusted (#0)
No place is better than Turtle Island.
#3. To: Disgusted (#0)
You're in a room with 10 other people who seem to agree on something, but you hold the opposite view. Do you say something? Or do you just go along with the others?
#4. To: Itistoolate (#3)
No place is better than Turtle Island.
#5. To: Turtle, AGENT PROVOCATURE ALERT (#4)
#6. To: Itistoolate (#5)
No place is better than Turtle Island.
#7. To: Turtle, CHRISTINE, AGENT PROVOCATUR ALERT (#4)
#8. To: Itistoolate, all (#7)
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/11/01/obama-conformity-and-the-asche-effect/
A note from Radarsite: Every now and then you come across an article that is so unique and insightful that it takes your breath away. Why didn57;t I think of that? we say. This little gem from Orlando at Fort Hard Knox is a perfect example. Short, concise and simple. Yet so stunning in its implications. I remember those experiments, and they were astonishing. Could this be one of the answers to one of this century57;s most unfathomable mysteries? - rg
October 31, 2008 by Orlando
Solomon Asch experimented with the power of conformity in 1953. Those taking part in the study were told that they were part of a vision test with a handful of others. The participants were then shown pictures. Then they were asked very simple and obvious questions. Here is the catch. Everybody else in the room other than the subject was in on it, and they were were told to give wrong answers. So would people go against the crowd, even when the crowd was clearly wrong? 
We all know Barack Obama is inexperienced and nothing but a political neophyte. He is wrong for America in so many ways - taxes, socialism, leftist, civil liberties, demogaguery, and more. Yet, once he amassed his media and internet crowd, the Asch effect seems to be taking place. People are afraid to go against the crowd even though it is an obviously wrong choice. Worse yet, even though his executive experience is less than Sarah Palin, she is considered “bad” and he is considered “good”, because that is the “popular” viewpoint.
Is it the Asch Effect? You decide.
#9. To: Itistoolate (#7)
No place is better than Turtle Island.
#10. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
#11. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
#13. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
#14. To: wakeup (#13)
#15. To: Itistoolate (#12)
#16. To: PSUSA (#1)
It happens because they are weak wimps that care more about what others think of them. If they dont have the balls to stand their ground, then it sucks to be them.
Lord Acton
#17. To: James Deffenbach (#16)
#18. To: PSUSA (#17)
Lord Acton
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