Why so many minds think alike

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/15/social.conformity.brain/index.html

by rams • 18 years ago

19 15 18 years ago

edition.cnn.com

kirse• 18 years ago

Also answered in this article:

- Why exactly you're getting downvoted on HN for that unpopular opinion you just posted

diN0bot• 18 years ago

i run a site where articles are voted on. we don't show scores in the 'voting' part of the site. people have to make up their own minds. also, a user that participates in a discussion relinquishes past and future votes in that area.

msluyter• 18 years ago

A fact that reflects well on YC News, IMHO, is that it's not only having a dissenting opinion that gets you voted down, but rather being poorly reasoned, inadequately substantiated, badly stated, etc...

mnemonicsloth• 18 years ago

If you re-frame this idea a little, you can come up with a better idea of how this bit of brain function probably operates in real life. (Experiments like this are carried out in pretty artificial circumstances, after all)

HN formed after reddit started getting... frivolous. Lightweight. Unserious. Dumb and trollish. We're here in part to have fun, but it's a forebrain kind of fun.

So rather than saying that you get voted down on HN for sloppy thinking, inarticulate, lazy, or generally being a dick [1], it might be more appropriate to say that, the community punishes people for violating its norms.

Or to get pedantic about it, the community assumes each of its members will behave this way, and steps in to punish those who aren't averse enough to being different in unacceptable ways.

[1] I think one of the site's official policies used to be "just don't be a dick. You know what that means," or some such, but it seems to be gone now.

peregrine2• 18 years ago

My take on why so many people think alike and any idea you have is usually thought up already; is that people get the same inputs.

We all read practically the same news, read the same top ten books, watch the same Tv. talk about the same subjects. Sure we all have different areas(Software Entrepenuers -> HN) but in reality we all have the same inputs and outputs no matter how special we feel.

mhb• 18 years ago

You didn't RTFA, did you?

dgordon2• 18 years ago

I don't remember the last time I read a top-ten book, and my list of recently-read books is probably wildly different from yours, as are both from a random third person here. The Internet opens up news and alternative news dramatically -- it's not a three-channel world and hasn't been for a long time, which brings me to TV -- a lot of people here don't watch it at all. I don't watch much. "Same subjects" might be true from a big enough view -- there are only so many categories of thought to go around, but within politics, science, world events, local events, philosophy, games, sports, etc., there's a lot of territory to make up a huge variety of subjects that people talk about.

Oh, and even though I disagree with your post and recognize that it's irrelevant to the article, I voted it up because it's relevant to the topic at hand and shouldn't have been voted down to 0.

peregrine2• 18 years ago

Thank you. I did read the article I am just saying the majority do everything the same in a similar matter with similar inputs.

When it comes down to it we are a computers.

johngunderman• 18 years ago

This seems to explain why many brilliant people also have such unusual quirks. They do not gravitate towards this "average" mentality (at least in some fields), and this allows them to develop greater than average ideas in other fields. Of course, none of them can truly be said to be "perfect" in their resistance to to the norm, but there seems to be a correlation. Just my $.02

flatline• 18 years ago

This explains a lot, in my mind, about how otherwise intelligent people can get pulled into cults and various other troublesome situations that rely on a prevalent group-think. It's not that you can't think of why something is wrong, but there's a strong natural impulse to go along with the crowd regardless of how wrong it is and you may know it to be.

rantfoil• 18 years ago

This is significant for entrepreneurs. Apple was absolutely on to something when it said: Think Different. Why think different? Because the masses are wrong. (In fact, the masses are asses. =) ) And this is why many startups and entrepreneurs are perceived to be pursuing inane, crazy or irrelevant ideas. Prevailing wisdom isn't, and it takes a crazy dreamer to ignore the massive and overwhelming tidal wave of group think.

rw• 18 years ago

For those of us who cannot watch it: what's the scoop?

whacked_new• 18 years ago

The video doesn't say anything more than the text. It's basically the first 3 paragraphs of the article (which is like 200 words?)

What's interesting about this study is that apparently they are finding that conforming people are actually genuinely perceiving the conformed opinion, rather than just pretending (which would be a simple case of cognitive dissonance).

mdd• 18 years ago

The research calls into question decision-making bodies that operate by consensus, Berns said. For example, in the U.S. legal system, many cases are decided by the unanimous judgment of the members of a jury.

"You can't separate those judgments from the fact that you have 12 people who have to come to a unanimous decision, and have to conform their opinion to each other, so of course it will distort how they view evidence," he said.

I wish the article expanded a little more on that point... It's both interesting and terrifying.

dgordon2• 18 years ago

I was thinking of the Asch experiments well before they were mentioned in the article. Notably, I seem to recall reading elsewhere that later attempts to replicate Asch's work failed, and suggestions that the particularly conformist culture of 1950s America was responsible. Yet this article suggests that what the subjects perceived, in the case where the question had an objective answer, actually changed according to brain imaging, not that they were made unsure and went along with the group.

"Asch talked about the power of the "minority of one." When a unanimous group pressures the individual, that group is weakened as soon as one person breaks off."

Wouldn't it be more accurate -- and perhaps more revealing -- to call this the "minority of two?"

Why so many minds think alike

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