The other day, a study was published that I thought was rather interesting. I then found 2 older studies that were sort of related and thought I'd share them with you. This is an area that is quite interesting to me. I've always been a bit of a black sheep, never really following the trends of the majority in much of anything. So when I read about how people make decisions, especially as a mob group, I find it to be a bit mysterious and fascinating.Here are the studies:
Children As Young As Preschoolers Tend To Follow Majority Opinion
In this study, three- and four-year-old children watched as a small group of people (either three or four members) named a novel object. The majority of group members would use the same name for the object; the lone dissenter would pick a different name. The children were then asked what they thought the object was called.
The results revealed that majority rules when it comes to influencing the opinion of preschoolers.
Children as young as age three and four are able to recognize and trust a consensus. In addition, young children are good at remembering who was and was not a part of the majority group.
I'd love to know more about how this was conducted. Were the people all careful to keep their expressions neutral and that sort of thing? Were they all dressed the same, etc? And who says the consensus is correct and should be trusted? It all shows a window into indoctrination, which I was talking about the other day. If enough people around a child are praying and talking to invisible gods in the sky, it seems natural for a child to easily accept that as trustworthy. And when something gets into your basic foundational belief system when you're so young and impressionable, it is really stuck in there.
