Why we follow the crowd?

Imagine you are walikung down a street and suddenly see fifty people staring at the sky. You dint know what they are looking at. So you look up too. You might not even care about the sky. But fifty people can't be all wrong... right?

Welcome to conformity.

Humans are social animals. We constantly use others people's behaviour as information. Psychologist Soloman Asch demonstrated this famously un his conformity experiments. Participants has to identify which line matched another line in length. The answer was ridiculously obvious.

Then the other people in the room deliberately gave the wrong answer. A surprising number of participants went along with the group anyways. Nobody forced them. Nobody threatened them. They simply didn't want the be the one person saying Guys...are we seriously pretending that these lines are off same length?

This tells us something uncomfortable with ourselves. We don't only look to other to know if this is the truth. Soemtimes we look to other to decide what we are allowed to beleive.

And that is where the narrative becomes dangerous. A narrative is a particular way if framing a situation.

The same event can be described as A protest demanding justice or A violent crowd causing chaos.

The facts may overlap but the emotional interpretation can be completely different. Once a narrative becomes dominant, people often start interpreting new information through it.

If you already beleive someone is a hero then their mistake becomes an accident.

If you believe that they are villain then the same mistake can become an evidence of their character.

This is connected to confirmation bias...our tendency to notice and favour information that supports what we already beleive.

Social media makes this dramatically worse. The algorithms are made to show you the videos that makes you think that everyone think the same as you.

So you start beleiving Obviously everyone agrees with me. I have to be right.

Meanwhile, other person is sitting in a completely different digital universe, seeing thousands of posts proving that they are obviously correct.

Both groups think that they represent reality. That is how echo chambers work. And once a group becomes emotionally attached to a narrative, questioning it can feel like a betrayal.

That is the frightening part.

A person may defend an idea not because they independently examined the evidence but because the idea has becomes th eoart it their identity.
Following the crowd is not always wrong.

Imagine a smoke coming from a building. Everyone runs away from the building. You should not be looking at the scientific research investigation before leaving.

Social learning is useful. Other people can posses information that we don't posses.

The crowd can be right. The crowd can be wrong. The skill is being able to stand inside a crowd and still ask Why do I believe this? Not How many people believe this?