Mind Field

So welcome, everyone.

My name's Ron, and your task is to choose

the line on the right

that matches the line on the left.

All right, this seems like an easy enough task:

which line on the right is the same length

as the one on the left?

The answer is clearly three.

One.

- One. - One.

Why is everyone saying one?

Are their eyes not working?

Have we just discovered some new type of illusion?

No, the answer is,

we paid them to lie.

Today, we are going to be demonstrating

a very famous psychological experiment

known as the "Asch experiment."

This experiment tests conformity

and whether or not a person

will say something incorrect

simply because everyone else is.

What matters more?

Being right or fitting in?

We have five professional actors

that have been instructed

to do as we say.

Often, they will be lying

about what they think the answer is.

But in position number five,

a real participant who has no idea

what's going on will be seated.

Now, their task is to match the length of the line

on the left with one of the lines on the right.

But what if everyone else in the room

gave the wrong answer?

Would you be bold enough to stick out

and say what you saw,

or would you just fit in

because it's easier or less uncomfortable?

Well, let's find out.

So welcome, everyone. My name's Ron.

Your task is to choose the line on the right

that matches the line on the left.

I'll just call on you individually,

you know, in order, one through six.

The calm before the storm.

Okay, so let's begin.

The first few times,

we're gonna have the actors

say the correct answer

to gain the trust of our subject.

The correct answer here is three.

Three.

Three.

- Number three. - Number three.

Three.

- One. - One.

- Number one. - Number one.

Number one.

Now they're all gonna start lying.

The correct answer is three.

Let's see what our subject does.

One.

One.

Pretty quickly, she appears to be confused.

One.

Um, okay, number one.

Number one.

Three...

One.

You can see participant five

closing one eye, then the other,

trying to figure out why everyone's wrong.

But she's not going along with them.

Again, the correct answer is three.

Let's see what our subject does.

Number one.

Number one.

Yeah, number one.

Number one.

Three?

She's sticking to her guns,

but she appears to be uncomfortable

opposing the group.

This time, the correct answer is two.

Three.

Three.

Number three.

Number three.

Number three.

Wow.

Three.

She's falling in line.

Will she do it again?

The correct answer is three.

- One. - One.

- Number one. - Number one.

Number one.

Conformed.

Conformity.

The desire to fit in.

Peer pressure.

These are powerful social forces

that shape our actions and beliefs

and influence how we behave

as individuals

and as a society.

In the original Asch experiments

first carried out by Solomon Asch in 1951,

approximately 75% of subjects

conformed at least once.

One.

Hi, Ron.

Sorry to butt in, guys. My name is Michael.

I just wanted to kind of ask you a few questions

about the study you've been doing.

This is a study on conformity.

And everyone in this room is an actor...

except for you, number five.

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

This is so crazy.

And they've all been instructed

to give the wrong answers

to see if you'll follow along.

- Whoa. - You did say the wrong answer

after everyone else had said the wrong answer.

Why did you do it?

I thought, "There's something going on here.

"I don't know what to do,

so I'm just gonna say what they said."

How did it feel to do that?

It... it felt...

it felt like I was drinking the Kool-Aid, like...

It's very normal.

This study wouldn't be as famous as it was

if it wasn't normal, though it is surprising,

because so many of us would say,

"No, I would always say what's real."

Right. Right.

Would you?

Right, no.

Clearly not all the time, yeah.

All right, thank you very much.

People follow the crowd in all kinds of interesting ways,

many of which are pretty funny.

Classical psychological experiments

and hidden camera pranks

often involve people acting together in strange ways

to see if others will conform.

Now, there's nothing inherently irrational

about following the crowd in ways like those.

Conforming can be a form of social lubrication.

It's just easier to do what someone else is doing,

because to break from that norm

would be to slow things down.

If everyone's facing the same way in an elevator,

it's not like you lose your personal sense of identity

by turning along with them.

Instead, you're just going with the flow

and not being awkward.

If I see a bunch of people on the street looking up,

and I decide to look up too,

there's nothing inherently bad about that.

I mean, what it costs for me to look up

is really low compared to the potential harm

that might come from me not seeing an imminent threat.

Sometimes, conformity is harmless.

Even laughter is a form of conformity.

We laugh if something is funny,

but we also tend to laugh

if people around us are laughing,

even if we don't get the joke.

There are a lot of social forces behind this:

politeness, a fear of looking stupid,

and no doubt a desire to conform...

to fit in.

Let's see what happens when there's even more pressure

to see something that's unfunny

as hilarious.

We've invited these people

to participate in a psychological experiment.

But here's the thing:

everyone in this room

is an actor,

except this guy.

He thinks he's just killing time in this waiting room

before the experiment begins.

But this is the experiment,

and that's no joke.

Hey, how's everyone doing today?

My name's Michael.

Nice to meet you all.

Thanks for participating.

It's important that everyone be kind of in a chatty mood.

So here's a question:

anyone got some good jokes?

- I have a great one. - Oh, yeah?

Why did the hipster burn his mouth on coffee?