Why do we follow the crowd?

You see this all the time as people follow the ‘IN’ thing for no reason, other than the fact that it is popular. Lets take the news and examine it. If you watch the news, the same story will repeat over and over and then people will hop on board and start discussing this news at the water cooler each day. It doesn’t matter what the news is… We will discuss it.

Do we allow others to dictate our behavior?

Absolutely. But why? Why do we do what others are doing without questioning their reasoning? Why do we do what others are doing, even if we know they are wrong? Oh you don’t believe me? Well I will prove you wrong over the next few parts of this course and you will see that we, as humans, are capable of doing things so crazy that it doesn’t even make sense.

Here is an experiment. Look at the picture below and tell me which one is longer… A or B.

Is there any reason why you would ever say that A was longer than B?

Under what circumstances would you go against what you know to be true? Can you think of why you would pick the answer B?… any reason at all?

You may not know it but under certain circumstances, you might just choose B. As humans, we want to be accepted and therefore we want to conform to standards, even if we don’t agree with them.

It’s Totally True!

• In many experiments like this, over 1/3 of people will actually choose the wrong answer, even when they know that the answer is wrong! WTF?

Do you believe in God?

You can see this in religion all the time. A worshiper may not actually agree with a particular topic but they will conform with whatever the preacher is saying, in order to be accepted by the group. I may very well piss some people off in this next part but here goes a story of where I once conformed to a particular religious act because I wanted to be accepted by the crowd. First and foremost, I don’t care if you are a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or you worship at the church of the flying spaghetti monster. This isn’t a topic of religion. I am just using this as an example…

Disclaimer: I am a believer and follower of Jesus. I do not agree with all the teachings of men today.

Church Camp!

The year was 1986 and I was at church camp for a week. During the evenings, we would all go the this big building they called the tabernacle. They would hold a service, geared toward kids, with puppets, music, stories, etc… The services were really fun for us and we all loved to attend. All the kids would talk about Jesus with such reverence and we were all just happy to be there. It was a fun time. Although there was a part of me that didn’t actually believe one of the things that was going on.

At the end of every service, they started their praying and worship part of the night. This was a super spiritual time and I could actually feel the power of God in this tabernacle. It was a special time. My particular denomination believed in the speaking of tongues. I had never spoke in tongues and I didn’t understand if it was real or fake. In the back of my mind, I had my doubts.

Speaking in Tongues

The time came for me to go forward and the leaders would lay hands on me so that I could speak in tongues. I didn’t know what I was about to experience. The other kids, who had gone before me were laying on the ground from what I thought was the power of the Holy Spirit running through them. They were all speaking in tongues.

The preacher laid his hands on me and said, “Just let it out. Speak in tongues.” Well I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t hear any language in my head. I tried to speak and no language except English would come out. They kept insisting that I let the Holy Spirit take over and I speak in tongues. By this time everyone was looking at me because I was the only one still standing and not speaking in tongues. So what did I do?

You guessed it! In an attempt to be accepted by the crowd, I started just babbling nonsense and allowed them to push me over and I laid there on the ground feeling very weird. Everyone else accepted me though. I had become "ONE OF THEM";

I will say this so that everyone doesn’t think I am an atheist. I do believe in Jesus Christ and the virgin birth. I do believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose on the 3rd day. I believe in the Bible and this is my faith. However I can not, nor have I ever been able to, speak in tongues. I am not you typical Christian – I have my own beliefs but I have conformed in the past on nothing but wanting to fit in.

Now why did I do this? Maybe I wanted to fit in. Maybe I wanted to be a part of a group so that I could interact with them as an insider. Maybe I didn’t want to be seen as a rebel. Whatever the case, I went against what I knew to be true for me and fell in line with the crowd. Have you ever went against your own beliefs to be accepted by the crowd? I bet you have. We all have and here is why…

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch Paradigm refers to a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions. Watch this video.

Now you know that humans will give in. We will change our answers to fit or conform with society. We conform at work, with our neighbor, everywhere. We also conform with trading.

Here is a story about trading...

Imagine you have bought a position on OIL. In today’s market, oil has dropped significantly and you are sure that you are getting it at an affordable price. Now you start hearing on TV all the news stories about what if oil makes a double dip. Online, you see posts about how anyone who is holding oil must be stupid. All of your trading friends are short oil.

What are you going to do? You may very well get out of your long position and go short on nothing more than because everyone else is doing it.

How flipping absurd! I have done it. You have done it. We all have but it is really absurd. This is part of the weirdness of the human mind and as we continue this course, I am going to show you some things that get really fucking creepy, about our minds.

Here is a question for you…

Would you murder someone because someone told you to do it? Stay tuned to the next few articles.