Li Weiwen: Are all sisters the same? Conformity Psychology and Group Myth

Charlie Chaplin, a great comedian in the silent film era, once anonymously participated in a Charlie Chaplin imitation show, but he lost the election.

Chaplin's appearance is very obvious, thin, with a Ren Dan beard, wearing wide suspenders and crutches in his hand. It is also very distinctive, with a very high recognition rate and easy imitation.

However, this Chaplin is not like Chaplin's story, not just a joke in our leisure time, but an important metaphor in life: we are getting less and less like ourselves, maybe we are getting farther and farther away from our original self, or maybe our imaginary self is completely different from others' eyes.

In recent years, I have often seen photos of so-called "sisters" sent by friends on Facebook or online, and some people think that everyone looks the same in Korean beauty pageants. ! Indeed, this is also my doubt over the years, not only Korean beauty, in fact, I have seen almost every photo of a sister circulating on the Internet look exactly the same.

Of course, we also liked to see beautiful women when we were young, but at that time everyone's beauty was different and had their own characteristics. To put it simply, people in the past had the beauty of individuality, but now people have no beauty of individuality.

Why is it more and more like it? Is it that the Internet and instant messaging that are far away have homogenized and simplified the whole world? So everything looks the same?

This also reminds me of the nature explanation activities often held by the Wilderness Conservation Association. Whether adults or children are new to nature and want to observe nature, the first difficulty they encounter is that they can't find anything. Except for plants that can't move, there seems to be no living thing that can move, jump and fly.

Even frogs, who live in the grass, are different from those in the ditch. Even frogs in the stone pile by the stream look like stones. Usually we simply regard animals as protective colors, but ignore the interaction between all living things, including human beings, and the surrounding environment.

Dawkins, a famous biologist, is answering: "What is man? Before 1859, the answer to this question was wrong. Dawkins refers to Darwin's Origin of Species published in 1859, which lowered man from the high position created by God, placed him in the same evolutionary position as all living things, and changed his view of the world.

In fact, Darwin himself never said the phrase "survival of the fittest". He said that organisms will mutate in the process of reproducing their offspring. When environmental resources are limited, individuals with certain characteristics will have a better chance of survival, and after many generations, new species will be formed. The environment itself, there is no distinction between good and bad, but it is in good shape and has no special purpose. In other words, only a few species are suitable for survival in that environment.

On the other hand, all species will become like the environment, and even human beings are constantly adapting to the environment, that is, the environment is constantly changing people. In recent years, there have been many reports in brain neuroscience or genetic engineering, and it has been found that even with the basic structure of molecules, genes will respond to changing environments, because there are actually more than one group of genes that control the performance of a certain trait, except dominant genes and recessive genes. When we encounter different environments, the previously suppressed recessive genes are untied and become dominant, and our physical appearance also changes.

Over the years, more and more young people in Taiwan Province Province are unmarried and infertile. Cats and dogs are kept as pets, and many people eat and sleep with them all day. They even help these pets dress and tie their headdresses. Look carefully at the cats or dogs that these friends hold in their arms. In fact, they are seven or eight points like their owners! In daily life, we can often see that married couples are more and more alike. We call it a couple's face. It can be seen that even human beings, as the soul of all things, can change in a short time without going through a long evolutionary generation. Of course, this is not entirely due to the acquired change of genes, but the instinct that has been set in human evolution, including the existence of "mirror neurons" in our nervous system.

The brain and nerves imitate almost unconsciously. When people around us do certain actions, the neurons in our brain that control the actions are also activated. This instinctive imitation is the living condition for human beings to live in groups. It helps us to establish contact with other human beings and create a situation where we are our own, because our ancestors could not survive alone if they were rejected by groups in the era of grassland hunting. Although being rejected by groups in modern civilization will not endanger life, but

We don't want to be different because we are afraid of rejection. In a famous psychological experiment, the researcher told the subject that he and everyone in the room would be tested together. But what the subjects didn't know was that everyone else in the room was an actor hired by the researchers, and they all gave the same wrong answer. The topic is simple and the answer is obvious, but when the actors point out the wrong answers one by one, the subjects will begin to feel confused, but strangely, most of the subjects do not insist on their own correct answers, but follow others' wrong answers. This "conformity" psychological force is much stronger than we thought. In a group, especially in the same space face to face, it is very difficult to be unique and different.

In addition to herd mentality, there is also the phenomenon of "group myth". In a cohesive group, sometimes in order to seek * * *, they often insist that the group's decision is correct, so they ignore different voices, so they often form extreme opinions, that is, the decision of one thing. After discussion, they tend to make more extreme decisions than when individuals make decisions alone, that is, radical ones will be more radical and conservative groups will be more conservative. In other words, moderate or pluralistic opinions will disappear completely.

From the historical experience, sometimes we wonder why many wise and upright people agree with such outrageous views. The reason is that people are under group pressure. On the one hand, we are afraid of being excluded. On the other hand, we are also worried that if we put forward different views from others, will others doubt our IQ, ability or taste? Of course, it is also possible that you just don't want to waste everyone's time or disrupt the process of things. In short, it is extremely difficult to oppose the opinions of everyone around you alone.

Moreover, this thoughtful person will go through several different stages after conformity. First, although he is obedient on the surface, he is not convinced at heart, that is, he is not convinced by oral administration; In the later internalization stage, I often don't want to admit how I can be so timid and cowardly for the sake of self-esteem, and then adjust my values, that is, take it orally and take it orally; In the end, we will agree that because of the collective atmosphere or the confrontation between different groups, we will further integrate our subjective consciousness into the group consciousness!

It has been proved from both evolutionary theory and psychological research that we are easily influenced by the environment or the situation in which people get along with each other. Only by recognizing these misunderstandings clearly and then reminding yourself from time to time can we be more likely to get rid of these instinctive influences.

As the last sentence of the Origin of Species wrote: "From such a simple beginning, the most beautiful and magical endless life forms have evolved and are still happening. This outlook on life has its magnificent side. Indeed, on the one hand, the development of human wisdom and imagination seems endless, but on the other hand, limited by the pressure of evolution and survival adaptation, human beings have retained many instinctive reactions. How to avoid falling into this dilemma of collective decision-making is a great challenge facing human society today.