How your brain will literally lie about what your eyes see just to fit in with the crowd
We’ve spent nine essays examining bugs in your mental software. System 1 runs on faulty autopilot. System 2 is too lazy to correct it. You take error-prone shortcuts. You construct false coherence. Confirmation bias filters reality. Cognitive dissonance justifies mistakes. The halo effect hijacks judgment. Your memories get edited every time you access them.
Here’s what I haven’t fully addressed. All those internal biases get amplified by something even more powerful: other people.
Your brain evolved in groups where fitting in meant survival. Being alone in the ancestral environment usually meant being dead. Your brain learned that lesson so well it will override what your eyes are literally telling you if enough other people disagree.
I’m not being hyperbolic. There’s an experiment.
In the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch ran one of the most famous studies in social psychology. Participants took a simple vision test – match a line to one of three comparison lines. The correct answer was obvious every time. A child could do it.
But Asch put each real participant in a room with seven actors following a script. On certain trials, all seven actors gave the same wrong answer. Obviously wrong. Laughably wrong.
About 75% of participants went along with the group’s incorrect answer at least once. On average, people conformed to the wrong answer about a third of the time. On a task where the right answer was staring them in the face.
Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler examine this in “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” They call it social proof – our tendency to look to others to figure out what we should think and do. Social forces work two ways. First, they provide information – if everyone believes something, maybe they know something you don’t. Second, they create pressure. Nobody wants to be the weird one who disagrees.
When Asch interviewed participants afterward, most said they knew their conforming answers were wrong. They just didn’t want to stand out.
People’s brains prioritize belonging over being right.
Now, check this part out. When Asch added just one person who gave the correct answer – one dissenter – conformity dropped dramatically, to about 5-10%. A single ally broke the spell. One person saying “actually, that’s line C” gave permission to trust your own eyes.
Think about that. Your brain doesn’t need unanimous agreement to override your perception. A majority is enough. But it doesn’t need a majority of dissenters to free you. One person is enough.
This has massive implications for how we consume information.
Social media is essentially a giant Asch experiment running 24/7. Likes, shares, comments create visible “agreement.” Your brain interprets this as social proof. But algorithms have sorted you into groups of like-minded people. The “consensus” you see is manufactured by selective exposure. You’re watching seven confederates give the same answer while millions outside your bubble see a completely different “consensus.”
Political tribalism works the same way. Once you identify with a group, you look to that group for your positions. Group says vaccines are dangerous? Must be true. Group says climate change is a hoax? Must be true. Group says capitalism is evil? Must be true.
You’re not reasoning to these conclusions. You’re conforming to them.
This connects to everything we’ve covered. Confirmation bias from Essay 6? Social proof supercharges it. You’re filtering information to match your group’s beliefs, then adopting those beliefs as your own. The halo effect from Essay 8? If your tribe likes a leader, positive halo. If your tribe dislikes someone, horn effect.
So how do you fight this?
First, recognize that the urge to conform is powerful and mostly invisible. You don’t experience yourself as caving to social pressure. You experience yourself as independently reaching the same conclusions everyone around you reached.
Second, diversify your information sources deliberately. Seek out smart people who disagree with your tribe – not idiots who confirm your worst stereotypes, but people making their strongest arguments. This is the intellectual equivalent of adding one dissenter to the Asch experiment.
The people that follow me and only think I’m full of shit 50% of the time are practicing this correctly. You don’t have to agree with everything I write to get value from following me. It’s the folks that get mad about something I say, and then announce they’re unfollowing me that make me roll my eyes. Not only because it makes no difference to anyone, but they’ve shown that ideas make them mad.
Third, notice when you’re using social proof as a substitute for thinking. “Everybody knows” is not evidence. “Most people believe” is not evidence.
I personally use this phrasing all of the time – but it’s a tactic to get a specific response. And it works. But in my own mind, when I am analyzing information, I rarely fall prey to generalizations.
The Asch experiments showed something disturbing – we will literally lie about what our eyes can see to avoid standing apart. But they also showed something hopeful. One dissenter changes everything.
You can be that dissenter. Not by being contrary for its own sake, but by actually thinking instead of absorbing the ambient beliefs of your environment. In a world drowning in groupthink, genuine independent thought is radical. And necessary. The group can be wrong. The group is often wrong. If everyone just follows the group, no one ever corrects the error.