Asch’s Conformity Experiment: Can You Withstand (COVID) Groupthink? | Sprouts
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2 years ago
⁣Solomon Asch's conformity experiment showed a few things, among which:
1. 77% of people tend to conform to the group and knowingly lie. This is especially true among groups of women and homogeneous peer groups.
2. If participants had only one ally, the effect of peer pressure decreased substantially.
Specific ways in which this is relevant in the 'COVID era':
- People wear face masks, because it's regarded as socially desirable, because it makes you a 'good person'.
- People get vaxxed themselves and have their children vaxxed, because others do so too, because it's socially desirable to protect others and the health care system, even though the facts show the opposite to be true.
- People reflexively attack dissenters as conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, quacks, etc., because others do too.
Sprouts says, "If three people say something obviously wrong and there is no one to disagree with them, many of us agree with the wrong answer and start lying due to our deeply human desire to fit in."
Solomon Asch said in 1955, "The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong, that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to go white-black. This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our education and about the values that guide our conduct." These words are still as true in 2022 as they were in 1955.
When you observe people's behavior, their actual main priority is to keep from getting attacked/excommunicated. Their priority is NOT to do what is right and true.
Prof. Mattias Desmet always says that it is crucial to keep speaking out to keep disrupting the mass formation. This has a strong relationship with the mentioned importance of knowing you have at least one ally.
We've seen a boatload of conformity and groupthink over the past 2 years, especially since all the dissenters (called 'allies' in Asch's experiment) were ruthlessly attacked, intimidated and censored.
The majority of people with something to lose in the short term, chose to self-censor. They chose to do what was safe and easy, instead what was right and true. In doing so, they were complicit in crimes against humanity. When the whole scam becomes common knowledge, they'll say: "We didn't know" and "We were just following orders". If they didn't know, it's because they didn't want to know.
We've had a pandemic of conformity, cowardice, sloth and stupidity.
All these people conformed to publicly admire the emperor's beautiful cloths, even when it was obvious the emperor wasn't wearing any. Like in George Orwell's book '1984', they all conformed to say that 2 2 equals 5.
Comedian Jim Breuer mocked the COVID cockatoos who all "followed the science" (which is code for 'the group' and 'the authorities'):
https://rumble.com/vxuzv7-trust-the-science-jim-breuer-pokes-fun-at-covid-cockatoos-.html
DESCRIPTION BY SPROUTS
In the 1950s the psychologist Solomon Asch devised a study to investigate whether peer pressure can be strong enough to change our perception, and make us believe in things that are not true. To do so, he set up a clever experiment on conformity that raises questions about our ability to think freely.
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