The prisoner experiment at Stanford is fascinating and a must read for everyong one. It was shocking how everyone just accepted their roles.

Every single time, I read your posts I go Holy Cow! Thank you for such lateral (at least for me) insights.

Excellent thought provoking article! I would like to think I am an independent thinker, however there are times I go along. Particularly when it is an unimportant exercise and I never gave it a thought. I don’t know if I should.

A setup of Asches experiment was, that there was an instructor showing:

– one line on the right and
– three more lines on the left among them only one with the same length as the line on the right-hand side

and then asking a group of volunteers one by one which one of the lines of the right-hand side has the same length as the line on the left-hand side.

The trick was that there was only one real volunteer and all others were just actors having agreed (*) in advance to give all the same incorrect answer.

(*) In the sense of the experiment’s conductor.

The aim was to show whether the real volunteer would stick to the (incorrect) opinion of the group. Which was often the case (maybe also 65%). But – and this is important – if the real volunteer had a partner – also giving the correct answer – then the real volunteer would not deny his perception in favour of the group any longer.
Applied to any other situation it is important to have partners who are also not willing to deny their perception or opinion in favour to any other group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIh4MkcfJA&feature=related

I think an interesting question was, which ratio of partners does it require to have the guts to offer ones opinion. What about the others? When do they change their (collective) mind due to obvious facts and others proclaiming a coherent opinion about these facts?
A problem may be what is called the effect of cognitive dissonance.

This is, in my eyes, another very important psychological issue: that is about the denial one’s very own perceptions to avoiding conflict with one’s own values and thus self-esteem. This effect – called cognitive dissonance – was investigated by Leon Festinger. I guess knowledge that we are ALL potential subject to this effect is of extraordinary importance.
Many, if their values and (self-)esteem are challenged(*) by their own habits, possessions – whatsoever – find “stupid excuses” to justify for themselves why they did what they did or why they own what they own.

(*) Due to people reflecting on their own behaviour or other people asking them questions about their behaviour. This my also be the reason why Sokrates had to die: he questioning people in the market place about various topic and thus challenged other people’s reason sometimes leading them to (unplanned) self-criticism by contradicting themselves. To avoid feelings of discomfort regarding that oneself might not have been right in any way – people tend to find stupid excuses or in turn may accuse others (the questioner or Sokrates in this example) instead.
Important to note – as I did already – is that we may all be susceptible to this kind of effect. Maybe I think I registered someone’s cognitive dissonance. I say: “he/she only really tries to find explanations to avoid his value conflicts”. This could also mean that I am in conflict with whatever the person says and am experiencing cognitive dissonance by subconsciously wanting to avoid discomfort of having to discard some of my wrong values.
A hint to who’s kind of cognitive dissonance is more pathological may be that someone’s arguments conflict with sufficiently scientifically provable facts or – he gets disproportionately angry which may reveal some kind of inner conflict due to the points topic.

To apply this arguments to ERE: how many ‘partners’ do you need to start in your environment or what could you do to damp possible discomfort due to changing your values? I.e. – to speak about me – sometimes it is difficult for me to convince myself that a lot of my consumerist “needs” are made up suggesting the assumptions that I have been wrong or having been mislead although I am convinced to be a considerate individual which then could lead to discomfort. I think its easiest not to emphasise the past behaviour which may have been faulty but to concentrate on making better decisions in future accepting that we all search our ways to truth (whatever that may mean).

Another and last remark – all that we live today are highly influenced by advertisement and its promises of well-being. This is a result of PR whose strategies have originally been developed by Edward Bernays who happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud(*). So – if one could utilise psychology in favour of consumerism why not use akin techniques to promote frugality and its subsequent advantages – like more time for oneself and family, better health, better social integration … ?

(*) Freuds theories have become more and more unnoticed as they happened to be difficult to be falsified and falsifiability is known to be the holy grail of modern scientific approaches. But this cannot disguise the profound effect of Freuds theories applied by Bernays and every modern PR campaign – connecting unconscious wants to things we do not need. I think its difficult to argue against this. So even though these theories may be difficult to be fasified they have experienced some kind of profound verification – albeit by examples although grand ones.

About Bernays, Freud and others there has been a really interesting four episode programm of BBC called “The Century Of The Self”. I think this can be watched online legally.

A major problem in my eyes is, that people who think to be in controll to guide the “stupid masses” – words that Bernays himself apparently used to use – are considerably affected by irrational and destructive motifs albeit believing to do the only “good thing” to create a stable society and controll the irrational and desctructive nature of the masses.

Another and the last difficult part is that people tend to their own fans. People tend to believe they are more important than others or other’s concerns. This I think is a learnt behaviour. Intertwined with the discussed effect of cognitive resonance this is pretty problematic.
Applying these thoughts to Bernays himself reveals intersting facts. In the first episode of the above mentioned four episodes of the “Century of the self” called “happiness machine” Bernays helps the industry to build unconscious binding of humans unexpressed wants to industry goods. This lead to even more production to satisfy these new want. Furthermore he helped to convince people to buy bonds and shares – in turn many people even bought them with borrowed money. Although this may not be the only effect – this contributed to the Great Depression 1929.
As some kind of countermotion Roosevelt then tried to emphasize humans rational capabilities and tried to incorporate the thoughts of the citizens into his decisions. Therefore he used representative surveys which have just been invented by George Gallup.
Now, altough Bernays should have known better he lead a campaign without example in its dimension for that time to re-convince people that consumism is the only real way to happiness. My interpretation is that – due to his conviction to be important and due to his irrational will to controll others he made up a story to convince himself that this campaign is a good thing – despite his experience of the Great Depression which even may have been a contributor to the subsequent historical events in Europe. This is cognitive dissonance again.

A very important conclusion to me is: humans consist of both parts: a rational and an emotional part. If we play irresponsible games with the unconscious wants of the masses – this may lead to dangerous events. Appealing to these unconscious wants and controlling people thereby offers an avenue to discrimination in forms of “the stupid masses” although this is not very fair, because the same people also could have appealed to the rational human part.
Maybe this forum is not the worst way to do so. For the start.

I do ‘not’ believe in following the crowd – I believe in my own convictions – whether right or wrong. I have the ‘balls’ to do that – yes, even tiny blondes have their strengths!

The movie “Das Experiment” is based on the Stanford thing. A good flick but highly disturbing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250258/

Another way to think of the chalkboard experiment is as showing that most of us are willing to revisit our own conclusions when faced with overwhelming evidence that they are incorrect. From that perspective it is a good thing.