MOB MENTALITY

Are humans predisposed to starting riots?

Janis McMath
Editor-in-Cheif

   
 

 

eople can procure miracles when they work together; there is no
Pica that we need one another to succeed. A few examples
of this teamwork include activist movements, charitable orga-
nizations, education systems, and hospital systems. Many
of humankind's greatest achievements could only be
accomplished through collaboration. Yet this prin-
ciple—that there is power in numbers—often
works against us. Hordes of people with
ill-intent can easily cause destruction.
What is it in our nature that makes us so
susceptible to a “herd mentality”?

WE LOVE TO COPY OTHERS

And not just on quizzes and tests. Many studies have

shown that humans have an undeniable tendency to

mirror the status quo, regardless of our initial feelings;

one famous example of this being the Asch conformity
studies from the 1950s. Participants were given a card with
images of multiple lines. They were then asked to distinguish
which lines were the same length. When participants were

in the control situation, where they answered the questions by
themselves, they answered incorrectly less than one percent of the

time. In the experimental situation—where research participants were

(unknowingly) put amongst a group of actors who were all instructed to

pick the incorrect answer—/75 percent of participants felt the sway of the

group and answered incorrectly at least one time. A shocking 37 percent of

participants gave the wrong answer every single time as the group did.

While you may think that copying what others say about a line length is
trivial, a study (Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm applied to moral
decisions) using the same techniques as the Asch conformity experiments, which
instead focused on moral decisions, also proved to show a “pronounced effect
of conformity.” When answers on moral decisions were compared between the
controlled condition participants that answered alone and those in the experimental
condition with the group of lying actors, the study showed that people often changed
their opinion to match the common consensus.

This apparent preference to replicate what others are doing isn’t a problem exclusive to
adults either—it is even seen in children as young as six-years old! A study (Social conformity
persists at least one day in 6-year-old children) done with both five- and six-year-olds involving
rating attractiveness of faces showed that while five-year-olds did not change their opinion when
told their ratings differed from that of their peers, six-year-olds conformed to what their peers
stated. When asked again about attractiveness ratings the next day, six-year-olds still showed a
conformity to what they were told was the norm. Mobs love to tell people what to think; people listen
when others tell them what to think. It’s a natural match.

WE'RE AWFUL WHEN ANONYMOUS

YouTube commenters are jerks, and science can explain why. The term “deindividuation” explains the behaviour

of these anonymous message board trolls; when people are put into situations where they are anonymous—for
example in a large group—they act in ways that they never would otherwise. For example, a study conducted by
Edward Diener in 1976 focused on the actions of trick-or-treaters. In the study, researchers set up several different
scenarios to test the effects of deindividuation of the behaviour of children taking candy from an unsupervised bowl. In

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While five-year-olds did not change their opinion when told their ratings differed
from that of their peers, six-year-olds conformed to what their peers stated.