February 23, 2023 • 10 mins
Expanding our Vocabulary – Pluralistic Ignorance
When we are in a group, we may be influenced by how others behave, believing that their thoughts influence their behaviour, and allow this to override what we are thinking, and then behaving.
Humankind: A hope for humanity (Rutger Bregman) https://www.amazon.ca/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Bregman/dp/0316418536
Asch experiment analysis https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
Lemmings and their behaviour https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide
How Disney influenced our understanding of lemmings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Wilderness_(film)
Beyond the Minimum Go Along to Get Along https://beyondtheminimum.podbean.com/?s=Go%20Along%20to%20get%20along
Connect with Tanya Hewitt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-hewitt-55804529/
Buy her a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tanyah
Credits:
Adam Johns – voiceover - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjohns730/
Beverley McKiver – composer and player of the music Tell Me About Love - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverleymckiver/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Johns (00:03):
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
I have a personal trainer who had expressed to me the other day that he didn't really like the change of weather. But he furthered that thought by saying, he can change his mindset, he can change his eating habits, his activities, his circle of friends, all sorts of things about his life. But he can't change the weather. And when he said that, I thought, that's incredible, because that reminded me of the Serenity Prayer, which maybe you know, I had been surrounded with this my entire life, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference". What is in our locus of control, versus our locus of influence, versus what we have very little power over is really important to understand. If we start to complain bitterly about things over which we have zero control, we're going to find ourselves very frustrated, and powerless, because there's nothing really you can do about it. If on the other hand, we accept things that we can't control and things that are in our control start to work on changing so that we can start to appreciate things, we can become much happier and delightful people to be around.
Adam Johns (02:19):
Today's episode is expanding our vocabulary.
Tanya Hewitt (02:26):
Today's expanded vocabulary is pluralistic ignorance. This is a term introduced by the academic literature in 1986, by a researcher named O' Gordon. It refers to how an individual relates to a group, although not in a productive way. It at its root is conformance with social norms, which of course, by and large are not written down, and thus are subject to interpretation and not evaluated. Pluralistic ignorance is the belief that a group is acting in a certain way, and they must all think X. I think Y, but I had better think X and act accordingly. You know it's wrong, but because everyone else thinks this, you suppress your own discomfort and go along with everyone else. You believe that everyone else is internally consistent. You are the only one facing this cognitive dissonance and resolve this by conforming to the group.
Unknown (03:36):
The Asch experiment, though done in the '50s shows this in a dramatic way. It was really looking at conformance in light of the Second World War. However, it still had some very insightful findings. If you don't know the Asch experiment, it was mind blowing to me when I first saw it. Essentially, a room is full of confederates, so people who are in on the experiment. They were instructed to deliberately give an obviously wrong answer. The test was three vertical lines of different heights. And the fourth line was shown which obviously matched line A, B or C. The experimentee was the last one to weigh in. This was done multiple times per group, and he also had a controlled group with no confederates. Asch measured how many times the experimentee, the participant, conformed to the incorrect majority view. Over 75% of participants conformed at least once, and only 25% never did. The control group had only 1% give the wrong answer. The article that explains all of this will be in the show notes. Some critiques of the Asch experiments state it was conducted in the 50s in the US, which at the time was deeply in the throes of McCarthyism. And that culture of fear of the government finding me out was pervasive and
(05:17):
would have influenced people's participation in this experiment.
Tanya Hewitt (05:22):
However, some recent examples are fire alarms going off in shopping malls, despite being trained in elementary school to respect fire drills. Typically, we look around to see what other people are doing. And if everyone is ignoring the fire alarm, there is a very high chance you will too. Even if you were alone in the mall and the fire alarm went off, you would respect it. But when there are others around you, you tend to become a lemming.
Unknown (05:55):
Now this is just a little segue here. This is fascinating. The second definition of lemming is a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially a headlong rush to destruction. A lemming is actually a rodent. It lives in the Arctic, and doesn't have these types of behaviors. We think they do though, because a Disney movie called Wild Wilderness, again, filmed in the 50s had a profound influence on how we understood at that time, lemmings to act. And it is the most striking demonstration of anthropomorphism that I can think of. Anthropomorphism, for those who don't know, is attributing human characteristics to non humans. These could be animals, plants, machines, anything that isn't human. I'll put some articles in the show notes that claim the widespread belief that lemmings willingly fall off a cliff was deliberately orchestrated by Disney in a 1958 documentary. But I digress.
(07:17):
Pluralistic ignorance is pervasive. The argument in Rutger Bregman's book talks about binge drinking on campuses, everyonebelieves that everyone else thinks that binge drinking is okay. Even though as individuals they disagree with the practice. And everyone ends up near alcohol poisoning, not of their own choosing. Quoting from the book, "We prefer the worst kind of misery, over a few ounces of shame or social discomfort." This topic is related to another podcast I have already recorded on go along to get along which I will put into the shownotes. Pluralistic ignorance is pervasive, but need not be. We can use our own faculties to make our decisions and guide ourselves through the world. It's not an easy journey. But the cost of pluralistic ignorance, I argue, is higher.
(08:21):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
(09:34):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it wasdiametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
I have a personal trainer who had expressed to me the other day that he didn't really like the change of weather. But he furthered that thought by saying, he can change his mindset, he can change his eating habits, his activities, his circle of friends, all sorts of things about his life. But he can't change the weather. And when he said that, I thought, that's incredible, because that reminded me of the Serenity Prayer, which maybe you know, I had been surrounded with this my entire life, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference". What is in our locus of control, versus our locus of influence, versus what we have very little power over is really important to understand. If we start to complain bitterly about things over which we have zero control, we're going to find ourselves very frustrated, and powerless, because there's nothing really you can do about it. If on the other hand, we accept things that we can't control and things that are in our control start to work on changing so that we can start to appreciate things, we can become much happier and delightful people to be around.
Adam Johns (02:19):
Today's episode is expanding our vocabulary.
Tanya Hewitt (02:26):
Today's expanded vocabulary is pluralistic ignorance. This is a term introduced by the academic literature in 1986, by a researcher named O' Gordon. It refers to how an individual relates to a group, although not in a productive way. It at its root is conformance with social norms, which of course, by and large are not written down, and thus are subject to interpretation and not evaluated. Pluralistic ignorance is the belief that a group is acting in a certain way, and they must all think X. I think Y, but I had better think X and act accordingly. You know it's wrong, but because everyone else thinks this, you suppress your own discomfort and go along with everyone else. You believe that everyone else is internally consistent. You are the only one facing this cognitive dissonance and resolve this by conforming to the group.
Unknown (03:36):
The Asch experiment, though done in the '50s shows this in a dramatic way. It was really looking at conformance in light of the Second World War. However, it still had some very insightful findings. If you don't know the Asch experiment, it was mind blowing to me when I first saw it. Essentially, a room is full of confederates, so people who are in on the experiment. They were instructed to deliberately give an obviously wrong answer. The test was three vertical lines of different heights. And the fourth line was shown which obviously matched line A, B or C. The experimentee was the last one to weigh in. This was done multiple times per group, and he also had a controlled group with no confederates. Asch measured how many times the experimentee, the participant, conformed to the incorrect majority view. Over 75% of participants conformed at least once, and only 25% never did. The control group had only 1% give the wrong answer. The article that explains all of this will be in the show notes. Some critiques of the Asch experiments state it was conducted in the 50s in the US, which at the time was deeply in the throes of McCarthyism. And that culture of fear of the government finding me out was pervasive and
(05:17):
would have influenced people's participation in this experiment.
Tanya Hewitt (05:22):
However, some recent examples are fire alarms going off in shopping malls, despite being trained in elementary school to respect fire drills. Typically, we look around to see what other people are doing. And if everyone is ignoring the fire alarm, there is a very high chance you will too. Even if you were alone in the mall and the fire alarm went off, you would respect it. But when there are others around you, you tend to become a lemming.
Unknown (05:55):
Now this is just a little segue here. This is fascinating. The second definition of lemming is a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially a headlong rush to destruction. A lemming is actually a rodent. It lives in the Arctic, and doesn't have these types of behaviors. We think they do though, because a Disney movie called Wild Wilderness, again, filmed in the 50s had a profound influence on how we understood at that time, lemmings to act. And it is the most striking demonstration of anthropomorphism that I can think of. Anthropomorphism, for those who don't know, is attributing human characteristics to non humans. These could be animals, plants, machines, anything that isn't human. I'll put some articles in the show notes that claim the widespread belief that lemmings willingly fall off a cliff was deliberately orchestrated by Disney in a 1958 documentary. But I digress.
(07:17):
Pluralistic ignorance is pervasive. The argument in Rutger Bregman's book talks about binge drinking on campuses, everyonebelieves that everyone else thinks that binge drinking is okay. Even though as individuals they disagree with the practice. And everyone ends up near alcohol poisoning, not of their own choosing. Quoting from the book, "We prefer the worst kind of misery, over a few ounces of shame or social discomfort." This topic is related to another podcast I have already recorded on go along to get along which I will put into the shownotes. Pluralistic ignorance is pervasive, but need not be. We can use our own faculties to make our decisions and guide ourselves through the world. It's not an easy journey. But the cost of pluralistic ignorance, I argue, is higher.
(08:21):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
(09:34):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it wasdiametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
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