One of the key findings of cultural cognition theory is that cultural world-views not only influence our evaluation of (agreed upon) facts but also, and more fundamentally, that world-views influence our perception and thus the creation of the factual universe available to us. Hence the term “cultural cognition.” One of the reasons for the priority of values to facts is the social nature of truth. Hardly ever do we subject our beliefs to first-hand empirical testing. Similarly, few of us spend the time to study the empirical findings of others in sufficient detail to have an educated opinion as to their reliability. Usually, we just take someone else’s word for it, preferably someone who is recognized – again, by others – as an expert in the matter. For most practical purposes, trust is therefore prior to truth. In that context, the question has been raised to what extent social conformity, our desire to go along with the opinion of a (trusted) group, has an effect on human perception.
In one of the early experiments, described by Sandra Blakeslee in the NYT, a test subject was shown two cards. On the first was a vertical line. On the second were three lines. The test subject was then asked to say which two lines were alike, a question which close to 100% of the test subjects were able to answer correctly. Now consider what happened when the test subject was placed in a group, where the group members were actors, pretending to be test subjects. Again, the two cards were shown. Before the test subject had a chance to answer, the group members, after what appeared to be an honest deliberation, agreed on a wrong answer. Some test subjects consistently ignored the wrong group answer and stuck with their correct answer. But the majority of test subjects went along with the group at least once. What happened here? Did the test subjects who went along with the group knowingly give a wrong answer? Or did the group consensus influence the test subjects’ perception so that they actually saw the wrong lines as being of equal length?
In Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation, Biological Psychiatry 2005, 58:245-253, Gregory S. Berns, et al. describe a recent attempt at answering those questions. Berns and his colleagues placed a test subject in an MRI scanner while conducting an experiment similar to that described above. (The test subject had to say whether two three-dimensional objects, displayed on a screen, were alike.) As in the original experiment, the test subjects fared significantly better on their own than in a group setting, where the group (of actors) was giving wrong answers. Berns and his colleagues compared the patterns of brain activity of those test subjects who resisted the group pressure to those who went along with the group’s wrong answer. Here is how they describe their findings:
Conformity was associated with functional changes in an occipital-parietal network, especially when the wrong information originated from other people. Independence was associated with increased amygdala and caudate activity, findings consistent with the assumptions of social norm theory about the behavioral saliency of standing alone. … These findings provide the first biological evidence for the involvement of perceptual and emotional processes during social conformity.
In other words, test subjects who went against the group showed brain activity in a region associated with emotions from social conflict, which was to be expected. But those test subjects who went along with the group, showed brain activity primarily in a region that deals with perception and not with social conflict. These findings could provide further empirical support to the theory of cultural cognition. The “conformists” apparently perceived the world according to a previously stated group consensus. For them, there was no social conflict and no decision to go against the group. Before they could actually make a decision, their perceptions were already altered as to avoid social conflict. The issue never rose to the level of conscious choice. (Note: If I am grossly misinterpreting Berns’s findings, I’d be grateful for comments or emails!)
It would be fascinating to conduct similar experiments with test subjects whose world-views are (not) compatible with those of the group. One would expect that the cognitive preemption of disagreement is significantly greater where the test subject’s values are compatible with those of the group.
[tags]social conformity, neurophysiology[/tags]
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Seems like there might be alternate explanations for this finding. These results might well be consistent with perception-region activity in both groups, but (dominant because cognitively significant) social conflict region activity in only those who chose to conflict, and those who did not choose to conflict might simply not have considered the possibility. For example, they may have briefly glanced at the lines, seen them as they were, but failed to reflect that accurate visual imput in their behavior, i.e. because they were reflexively repeating what everyone else said.
“The issue never rose to the level of conscious choice. (Note: If I am grossly misinterpreting Berns’s findings, I’d be grateful for comments or emails!)”
I don’t think we can go quite this far, although I suspect that the authors do… we can say that they didn’t act from a careful conscious analysis, but not necessarily that their private answers, if a substantial money reward were involved for the highest score, say, wouldn’t have reverted to more correct answers (although two wholly unconscious switches are possible too!)
Mirror neurons, etc, show that we imagine what other people are thinking – even when we disagree. That’s not the same as hallucinating or forgeting that we saw or remember something different.
In other words, the predominant brain activity wasn’t conscious, but that doesn’t mean they were doing something like hallucinating. I suspect they would say something like: “I guessed at that point that I must have misremembered or something, even though I knew my impression was the opposite.” (I could be wrong here.)
It’s more like a deliberate supression of conscious analysis by other parts of the brain so they go on autopilot.
I’m not sure I’ve really clarified anything here though.
completeconfusion.com
It’s entirely possible that there might be something going on here which supports a “cultural cognitive” conclusion. We already know that cognition affects perception (to the point where it is axiomatic to say so). The extent to which this happens due to specialized conformity-inducing devices in the brain vs. which it happens due to a confluence of factors, would be interesting to know. Mere locality of activity as evidenced on fMRIs and so on, although instructive (and essential to any potential of genuine knowledge in this field, I believe), doesn’t yet appear to be enough to provide a rich causal explanation.
I think Paul raises some salient doubts. The results may have been due to participant carelessness. It’s hard to tell. The study does talk about “attention”, but I’m not sure if their treatment of the subject (in the discussion) is talking about extra visual attention paid to the confederates, or to the lines. It seems the former, and that would tell us how the subjects were paying attention to other humans, but not tell us whether or not they were distracted from the task at hand.
There is evidently a Harvard scale for susceptibility to hypnosis, where some people are more likely to find themselves given over to manipulation, while others aren’t. (I once participated in a study on this. I’m one of the stubborn ones who don’t get hypnotized easily. Or at least, not that I know of.) It would be interesting if those who participated in these “neuro”-Asch experiments were to also participate in hypnosis studies.
‘But how can you control matter?’ he burst out. ‘You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death –’
O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. ‘We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation — anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.’
‘But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.’
‘Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.’
‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.’
‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.’
‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.’
‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.’
‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’
‘What are the stars?’ said O’Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.’
Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:
‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?’
Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind — surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as he looked down at him.
‘I told you, Winston,’ he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,’ he added in a different tone. ‘The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.’
– 1984, Part 3, Chapter 3
George Orwell