Following the Crowd
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=1495038
Do humans have the needs to conform? This article provides two scientific experiments conducted by a professor from Emory University, on how and why people tend to follow the crowd and conform to the majority. According to the article, there are two ways to explain conformist behavior. The first one is that people know what they actually see, or perceive, but they choose to ignore it and “go along with the group to belong to the group.” The second explanation is that hearing the crowd’s opinions can change what we perceive, even if they are wrong. Based on the neurological analysis of the two experiments, the article contends that people tend to follow the crowd because of the fear of standing alone.
This conclusion is valid when applied to many examples. For instance, the example of predicting majority blue ball or red ball that was discussed in class has the same logic. When the third student needs to predict the majority of the ball color, they have the reference from the two previous students, as well as the ball color they got themselves. The most interesting instance is when the first 2 students both predicted majority blue (MB), no matter what color the third student gets, it is most intuitive and logical for them to predict majority blue. This connects to the first explanation in the article, which is to ignore what you see and perceive and go along with the group to ensure success. This is similar to the direct benefits, which means you get benefits when conforming to the crowd. Finally, to add on to the point made in the article that people follow the crowd because they are scared of being alone, this can be linked to the structural balance theory discussed in earlier sections of the class. People are scared of having negative relationships with the crowd while most of them have mutual positive relationships. Even if being left alone creates a structurally balanced relationship, it benefits the individual more if they conform to the crowd.
Class notes on the prediction of majority blue/red
structural balance theory applied to the example