An inherent tendency to want to belong to a group can be useful for survival, but it also throws up some surreal and bizarre results. For example, being part of a group can override our judgement, even our senses.
Everyone knows about peer pressure, where you do or say things not because you agree but because the group you belong to wants you to, like claiming to like a band you detest because the “cool” kids like them, or spending hours discussing the merits of a film your friends loved but that you found agonizingly dull. This is a scientifically recognized occurrence, known as normative social influence, which is what happens when your brain goes to the effort of forming a conclusion or opinion about something, only to abandon it if the group you identify with disagrees. Worryingly often, our brains prioritize “being liked” over “being right.”
This has been demonstrated in scientific settings. A 1951 study by Solomon Asch put subjects in small groups and asked them very basic questions; for instance, showing them three different lines and asking, “Which is longest?”29 It might surprise you to hear that most participants gave completely the wrong answer. It didn’t surprise the researchers though, because only one person in each group was a “real” subject; the rest were stooges instructed to give the wrong answer. The genuine subjects had to give their answers last, when everyone else had given theirs aloud. And 75 percent of the time, the subjects gave the wrong answer too.
When asked why they gave a clearly wrong answer, most said they didn’t want to “rock the boat” or similar sentiments. They didn’t “know” the other group members at all outside the experiment, and yet they wanted the approval of their new peers, enough to deny their own senses. Being part of a group is apparently something our brains prioritize.
It’s not absolute. Although 75 percent of subjects agreed with the group’s wrong answer, 25 percent didn’t. We may be heavily influenced by our group but our own backgrounds and personalities are often equally potent, and groups are composed of different types of individuals, not submissive drones. You do get people who are happy to say things almost everyone around them will object to. You can make millions doing this on televised talent shows.
Normative social influence can be described as behavioral in nature; we act as if we agree with the group, even if we don’t. The people around us can’t dictate how we think though, surely?
Often, this is true. If all your friends and family suddenly insisted 2 + 2 = 7, or that gravity pushes you up, you still wouldn’t agree. You might worry that everyone you care about has completely lost it, but you wouldn’t agree, because your own senses and understanding show that they’re wrong. But here the truth is blatant. In more ambiguous situations, other people can indeed impact on our thought processes.
This is informational social influence, where other people are used by our brains as a reliable source of information (however wrongly) when figuring out uncertain scenarios. This may explain why anecdotal evidence can be so persuasive. Finding accurate data about a complex subject is hard work, but if you heard it from a guy in a bar, or from your friend’s mother’s cousin who knows about it, then this is often sufficient evidence. Alternative medicine and conspiracy theories persist thanks to this.
It’s perhaps predictable. For a developing brain, the main source of information is other people. Mimicry and imitation are fundamental processes whereby children learn, and for many years now neuroscientists have been excited about “mirror neurons,” neurons that activate both when we perform a specific action and when we observe that action from someone else, suggesting the brain recognizes and processes the behavior of others at a fundamental level. (Mirror neurons and their properties are something of a controversial issue in neuroscience, so don’t take any of this for granted.30)
Our brains prefer to use other people as a go-to reference for information in uncertain scenarios. The human brain evolved over millions of years, and our fellow humans have been around a lot longer than Google. You can see how this would be useful; you hear a loud noise and think it might be an enraged mammoth, but everyone else in your tribe is running away screaming, so they probably know it is an enraged mammoth, and you’d better follow suit. But there are times when basing your decisions and actions on other people’s can have dark and unpleasant consequences.
In 1964, New York resident Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered. While tragic in itself, this particular crime became infamous because reports revealed that 38 people witnessed the attack but did nothing to help or intervene. This shocking behavior prompted social psychologists Darley and Latané to investigate it, leading to the discovery of the phenomenon known as the “bystander effect,”§ which is where people are unlikely to intervene or offer assistance if there are others around.31 This isn’t (always) due to selfishness or cowardice but because we refer to other people to determine our actions when we aren’t certain what to do. There are plenty of people who get involved where needed, but if others are around the bystander effect presents a psychological obstacle that must be overcome.
The bystander effect acts to suppress our actions and decisions; it stops us doing something because we’re in a group. Being part of a group can also cause us to think and do things we’d never do when alone.
Being in a group invariably makes people desire group harmony. A fractious or argumentative group isn’t useful and is unpleasant to be part of, so overall agreement and accord is usually something everyone wants to achieve. If conditions are right, this desire for harmony can be so compelling that people will end up thinking or agreeing with things that they’d usually consider irrational or unwise just to achieve it. When the good of the group takes precedence over logical or reasonable decisions, this is known as groupthink.32
Groupthink is only part of it. Take a controversial subject matter, like the legalization of cannabis (something that’s a “hot button” issue at the time of writing). If you took 30 people off the street (with their permission) and asked them their thoughts about legalizing cannabis, you’d likely get a range of opinions, from, “Cannabis is evil and you should be locked up for even smelling it,” to, “Cannabis is great and should be given away with children’s meals,” with most falling somewhere between these two extremes.