conformity [cc]

It's a subject psychologists have been investigating for the better part of a century.

In this video, I wanted to share a couple of the old pioneering studies in this area,

plus a recent neurological study that offers surprising ideas on just how deeply we're affected by group opinion.

I'll end with some personal observations, and an invitation.

In 1935, in his study of social influences, Sherif made use of a phenomenon called the autokinetic effect.

This is where a stationary point of light in a completely dark room will appear to move.

This happens because the eye makes tiny, involuntary movements all the time.

In a well-lit room with clear reference points, our brain compensates for these involuntary movements, so that the world appears stationary.

But in a totally dark room, we've got no frame of reference to tell our brain whether it's our eye that moved, or the point of light.

Sherif asked individual subjects to estimate how far the point of light moved.

When asked individually, the range of answers given was pretty broad.

Some consistently reported that the light moved about six inches; others consistently reported that it barely moved at all.

But when asked as a group, subjects' answers converged toward an average distance.

Subjects rejected the idea that they'd been influenced by the group,

but went on, in subsequent individual tests, to give answers consistently close to their group norm.

Sherif's experiment was criticized for using an ambiguous task.

Not knowing for sure how far the light moved, subjects were more prone to change their minds.

But what would happen if the task wasn't ambiguous?

In the 1950s, Asch addressed this question using very concrete stimuli.

He assembled groups of seven to nine college students in a classroom, for an experiment ostensibly about visual judgment.

He then presented a series of cards like this.

Going around the group, participants then had to identify which of the lines on the right matched the line on the left.

The twist was that, in reality, all the participants except one were confederates of Asch,

who'd secretly been instructed to give the wrong answer on twelve out of eighteen sets of cards, starting with the third set.

Asch tested one hundred and twenty-three subjects.

In normal circumstances, subjects gave incorrect answers less than 1% of the time.

With the social pressure of the confederates applied, that shot up to an incidence of around 37%,

with 74% of subjects conforming to the majority on at least one critical trial.

Subjects didn't necessary conform straight away—some started out defying the group for a couple of rounds,

but became gradually more hesitant and quiet, before conformity eventually kicked in.

Asch proposed that conformity could be explained by distortions occurring at any of three levels:

Perception, Judgment, and Action.

At the action level, subjects believe the majority are wrong, but go along with them anyway.

At the level of judgment, subjects perceive there is a conflict, but reject their own judgment, concluding the majority are right.

At the level of perception, subjects' perceptions are genuinely distorted by the majority answers.

A recent neurological study by Berns and colleagues investigated these three explanations,

using magnetic resonance imaging to examine the brain activity involved in this social phenomenon.

Thirty-two subjects were tested in all, and this time the task involved rotating two 3D objects to decide whether or not they matched.

As with Asch's experiments, the rest of the group were confederates, instructed to give predetermined right or wrong answers.

Consistent with Asch's findings, subjects on average conformed 41% of the time,

but of course the main thrust of this experiment was to see what parts of the brain were associated with this conformity.

If conformity occurred at the level of perception, areas like the occipital and parietal lobes, used in visuospatial awareness, would be expected to show activity.

If it occurred at the level of judgment and action, other areas would be predicted, such as the orbitofrontal cortex, used in decision-making.

The MRI scans showed activity in the occipital-parietal network, supporting the perception explanation.

If it's true that subjects' perceptions are genuinely distorted, that means that

group opinion has the potential to affect an individual's information processing on a very profound level.

Now, I'd suggest that it's not possible to generalize these results back to Asch's subjects.

I'd suggest there's a substantial difference in difficulty between the two tasks,

so that with the rotation task, subjects might well be more prone to rely on other people's judgments.

To be sure the same brain processes are at work in Asch's experiment,

subjects would have to be tested doing his single line task.

And even though the perception explanation was supported here,

we know that the other two processes do exist.

We can all think of instances in our lives when we've knowingly gone alone with the majority,

despite private reservations, or preferences.

There are loads of human mechanisms that can work for or against us.

Our pattern-seeking behavior has led to all kinds of scientific breakthroughs, where we've correctly identified patterns in nature.

It's also given rise to all kinds of irrational superstitions, where we've imagined patterns or relationships that have no basis in reality.

Clearly, conformity can have its advantages: it can give social life a convenient structure, predictability.

It allows us to maintain all sorts of helpful social conventions like queuing, without the hassle of constant challenge or renegotiation.

But it begins to work against us when we allow ourselves to be tyrannized by group opinion, in areas where group opinion simply shouldn't figure.

We can end up distorting huge chunks of our authentic selves for absolutely no good reason:

chunks of autonomy, personal desires and preferences that have no impact on others, valid objections on important issues.

It's my contention that we give up a lot more than we know.

Pressure to conform is pervasive and insidious.

We often feel liberated when we break away from a majority that we realize we've been subscribing to purely because of social pressures to conform.

We form minority communities that seem to represent freedom from those pressures.

We then find that these minority communities can become rife with exactly the same pressures to conform to them.

In a 2007 study into how we assess group opinion, Weaver and colleagues found that

hearing an opinion repeated three times by the same person in a group had almost exactly the same impact

as hearing the opinion expressed by three different people in a group.

Weaver argues that we assess an opinion's popularity by how familiar it is to us—how many times we've heard it.

And unfortunately, our brains don't always distinguish between an opinion expressed by many individuals and an opinion merely repeated by the same few.

We can be self-defeating in our conformity. Say we have a group of people holding opinion X.

Unbeknownst to the group, half of them secretly disagree,

but due to the social penalties they've seen dished out to a few individuals who have disagreed, they keep quiet.

By conforming, we add to the statistics of groups we don't actually belong to, and perpetuate the idea of majorities who may not actually exist.

Imagine if none of us conformed in that way, how that would change the social landscape.

Just knowing about Asch's experiment makes us less susceptible as potential subjects in similar experiments.

The more aware we are of our vulnerabilities to conform on any level, the better we're able to defend against it.

It's easier to be skeptical about groups we don't belong to, or that we've broken away from.

But conformity really kicks in with the groups we identify with.

To get the support and acceptance we might seek from those groups,

we can find ourselves giving up more than we bargained for in return.

Being part of a group doesn't mean agreeing with every part of that group.

We should always feel able to voice legitimate criticisms with any group,

whether that's family, friends, social interest groups, whoever.

When we stop feeling able to do that, we give those groups status and authority that they don't deserve,

and that they actually don't possess.

If a group can't handle legitimate dissent, it's not a group I want to be a part of.

Thinking is the first step. Doing is the next.

Some people spend years reading self-help books, having profound realizations, epiphanies, breakthroughs—in their head,

then they're sometimes deflated to find that, with all that amazing awareness, their life doesn't seem to change.

It doesn't change because, despite their insights, they don't change their behavior.

Awareness is important, but behavior is just as crucial.

Berns' study showed that individuals who went against the group exhibited brain activity associated with emotional arousal.

It feels risky to stand out, but, as with most things, the more you do it, the easier it feels.

I think it's important to push ourselves in life, to stretch ourselves.

If we don't expect much from ourselves, we can stagnate, but expectations need to be realistic—

our own expectations, and other people's expectations of us.

Disappointing people can actually be very humanizing.

It can give those we disappoint the opportunity to realize that their demands might not be reasonable.

So I'm throwing open an invitation to consider some of the things we conceal about ourselves in order to conform:

Preferences, activities, beliefs, physical characteristics, that violate no one,

but for some reason we submit to a perceived consensus that they're unacceptable.

What kinds of fears lie behind our conformity on these things?

Are these judgments rational?

You don't like to dance? Don't dance.

The ideas, the books, the films, the people that inspire me are the ones that celebrate diversity, individuality, authenticity.

I've certainly never been inspired by anyone who's encouraged conformity to the group,

anyone who's tried to encourage fear, or tried to shrink my comfort zone.

People who come out with this kind of fallacious bullshit. Have you?

I say, question this stuff. Question the group. And let's risk being more fully ourselves.