The illusion of consensus is powerful. Here's why you should fight it.

"students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania are gathering in small groups to take part in what they believe to be a vision test. They're shown three lines of obviously different lengths and asked which one matches a target line. Unaware that they're participating in a psychology experiment overseen by the social psychologist Solomon Asch, the subjects don't realize that everyone else in their group has been instructed to give the wrong answer."

"The task is simple - one line clearly matches the target while the other two clearly don't. Yet when everyone in the room says otherwise, the students begin to doubt what they see. Such is the power of conformity, which Asch had designed the test to measure, that 75% of participants go along with an obviously false consensus at least once. They override their own judgment in the face of certainty from the group."

"This was a complex dynamic in 1951; today, it is even more so. Asch's "majority" is now a cultural force whose atmospheric pressure we endlessly encounter online. Causes célèbres and ideological trends often shift faster than our capacity to gain a deep understanding of the issues involved, yet we're incentivized to align ourselves with the prevailing view and signal accordingly. Of course, as in Asch's experiment, the "majority" we react to can be an illusion that causes us to equate the loudest voices with authority."

Solomon Asch's 1951 experiment at Swarthmore College showed that individuals frequently conformed to a unanimous but incorrect group judgment. Participants were shown clearly different line lengths and asked to match a target line; most were unaware that confederates had been instructed to give wrong answers. Approximately 75% of participants conformed at least once, overriding clear personal perception under group pressure. The dynamic of majority influence now extends into online culture, where rapid ideological shifts and visibility incentives can create illusory majorities and encourage people to adopt prevailing views about morality, duty, and truth.

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