Have you encountered a cinematic or theatrical performance, and you found people laughing at an ordinary scene and laughed with them, without knowing why, or without understanding that laughter’s scene? Have you been in a boring lecture, and when someone started applause, I found all the attendees imitating them without awareness of them? I remember one time when I was in London with my husband, and I stood with him in front of a Lebanese restaurant, waiting for our shawarma sandwiches. It is only minutes. It is a funny but real scene.
They are models that show people’s tendency to social compliance without awareness of them.
Social compliance is to control a person’s beliefs, orientations and behaviors to suit a specific group.
One of the reasons for the group’s blindness to the group blindly is the feeling of safety that it provides to them through compatibility with the majority, so they protect themselves from criticism, rejection and isolation, as the fear of the difference or the rejection of many leads to the true suppression of themselves and the adoption of the beliefs and behaviors of others, even when they know in their depths that they are wrong.
This is supported by the famous experience by the social psychologist “Ash” to measure social compliance, when one of the students was offered cards that contain different lines, and he had to determine any line that matches its length as a reference line.
What this student did not know is that the rest of the students in the room were previously agreed with the researcher, and they were deliberately giving a wrong answer, such as choosing the shorter line as the longest. The real participant, although he confirmed that the answer is wrong, was often complied with the opinion of the group and repeated their answer, only in order not to differ from them.
The experiment revealed that the fear of social isolation or the appearance of the “stranger” sometimes pushes a person to abandon his mental rule and keep up with others, even in clear matters.
And I remember a fictional story that inspired me, but it simulates the reality to a large extent, which is that the leader of a tribe discovered that his tribe members were all mad when they were drank from the water of the river in their village, and he remained the only sane between them and he felt alienated and anxiety, so he was only that he went and drank from the same water of the river to become like them, and he feels safe after compliance with his group.
This example explains how social pressure can distort our decisions and behaviors, which confirms the importance of awareness and independence in thinking, and self -raising on the right decision -making, whatever the cost.
There are models on how blind compliance with the prevailing values in certain societies can continue and perpetuate the wrong conditions, such as domestic violence, racial discrimination, or religious extremism. In these cases, individuals justify or support actions that contradict the values of justice and humanity because they are acceptable from a specific group that exploits their ability to be affected to direct their behavior in undesirable or immoral directions so they are vulnerable to manipulation and control when they blindly abide by what their group requires or do.
Blind social compliance is only a false feeling of safety that results in a really high cost, as it shackles creativity and critical and individual thinking, which leads to a society of passive followers instead of creative thinkers tools of change in society, who only with their hands are progressing, developing and prospering.
* University professor in psychology
