People discount their own sense evidence to conform to group consensus

Evidence

In his path-breaking 1955 paper “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Solomon Asch demonstrated that there is a social aspect to belief, such that we may discount even the evidence of our own senses if we think that our beliefs are not in harmony with those around us. In short, peer pressure works. Just as we seek to have harmony within our own beliefs, we also seek harmony with the beliefs of those around us. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 89

Categorization

• XREF: Asch conformity connects to reader’s work on Islamophobia as socially manufactured collective belief. — connects to: People deploy selective perception and motivated reasoning routinely when faced with evidence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 144; Perceived social consensus licenses people to express their biases; Evidence sharing alone drives groups toward uniform belief without conformity psychology — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 208 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Most people abandon clearly correct perceptions to match a unanimous group #corroborates (0.92) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 185
• Evidence sharing alone drives groups toward uniform belief without conformity psychology #contradicts (0.82) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 208
• Perceived social consensus licenses people to express their biases #corroborates (0.80)
• Social consensus precedes individual competence in judgment #qualifies (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 268
• Rational inference from others’ actions alone can push a whole group wrong #complicates (0.72) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 286