Closing the circle and the conformity effect (Part 2)

    In Part 1 I brought together Dave Eggers’ ‘The Circle’ and the brilliant study of subliminal influence a set of inanimate watching eyes can have on us.

   ‘The Circle’ was a fun read for me, and it should do the job for you too if you’re drawn into new technology, novel and provocative ideas, and a desire to question the old and critically evaluate the new. A natural outcome was the particular novel to lend itself for further pairing with even more astounding research in the field of psychology.

   A theme that I saw recurring in this book was that of conformity on one hand and that of ‘us-versus-them-who-don’t-get-it’ mentality on the other. The book’s heroine, Mae Holland, experiences a major cognitive dissonance. It stems from her inner conflict between her willingness to be a substantial member of her new company, whereby she acquiesces to every request for access into every conceivable aspect of her personal life, and her inner voice that strives for a few moments of privacy. Her new work becomes gradually the reason for alienation with her parents and her previous life, where no one seems to understand the profundity of the changes that take place in society thanks to the unrelenting efforts of ‘the Circlers’.

   Mae Holland was all too eager to find a solution to her inner conflict -cognitive dissonance is known to be a real nasty trouble when it comes to your everyday peace of mind- and she did it by subduing herself to conformity. She conformed to the superior knowledge and wisdom -they know what the right thing to do is- of the Circle’s three founders.

 

   One psychologist stands out when it comes to studies on conformity, and that is Stanley Milgram.

   In 1961, Milgram sought to explain the reason for the atrocities of WWII. Why did the Germans, a nation considered to be among the developed and literate, lend firm support to a bellicose regime? What was it that drove humans to such an irrational behavior? To what extent would someone be willing to cause harm to his/her fellow?

   Milgram conceived a setting where he would put that to test. He asked his confederates to supervise unsuspecting participants, while the latter would be administering electric current to -yet another- confederate. Don’t freak out -yet-, these shocks were not left without justification. The participants were instructed to ask a set of questions to Milgram’s wired assistant. Whenever the answer was wrong the participant was instructed to turn on the switch. 

   At the beginning, this was the reason for a mild grunt. As the experiment advanced, the questions became tougher and the barely audible grunts turned into screams of despair. The instructions were the same however: ‘Keep going’. A disappointing 65% obliged and continued until the confederate at the receiving end of the cable passed out. This was all feigned of course, the shocks were not the real deal. Nevertheless, the bitter reality was that the participants obliged to such an extent as to harm another -pleading for leniency- human being. The experiment was later replicated in other countries with the same conclusions. For more details you can always watch the following series of videos (of around 15 minutes in total):

  

   Is there any antidote? Conformity to authority has been the glue that kept society and organizations from falling apart. An interminable haggling over what has to be done and how, might not be that productive after all. An unconditioned acceptance of orders can be pernicious as well. There has to be a golden mean, a path somewhere in the middle to walk. And this is a matter of bringing up individuals with the right frame of mind. The question should be reshaped and be: What kind of education do we want?