Writes Jim Lloyd:
Hi Lew,
I haven’t seen anything on LRC referencing the Asch experiments, which is quite relevant to the MaskArena. In short, if enough members of a group give an obviously wrong answer (publicly) to a question, although the reasons to do so are varied, the results show a strong tendency for subjects to acquiesce to the perception of the group, rather than their own. The link is a video of one experiment, and is introduced by Philip Zimbardo, the researcher funded by the Dept of the Navy to play incarceration games in a Stanford University basement. If Milgram’s obedience experiments are included with Asch’s normative social influence findings, we have 80%+ of Americans convinced any mask could save their lives and every “authority” knows what s/he was talking about or doing. I’m sure there is something about reliable/internalized sources as well, although I can’t presently recall it. The links at the bottom of the Wikipedia link are also of interest.
Zimbardo introducing the Asch experiment(s)
