Going Against the Sway in School
A really interesting and easy-to-read book my husband picked out is:
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman (Hardcover - Jun 3, 2008)
BTW the authors grew up in Israel and draw on studies in Israel for a few of their illustrations of the principle of sway. Among their examples is giving what one must know is the wrong answer in an experimental research study that purports to check for visual acuity but really tests the psychological or social sway phenomenon. In this experiment, people are hired to give the answer on a multiple choice that is obviously wrong. The results are that the real subjects of the experiment in that circumstances in most cases give the same wrong answer. These are not subjective questions but things like which of these 3 lines (all very different lengths) match the other line. Most people will second-guess their own judgments and follow the crowd even in something as objectively obvious as this.
Now for my own surprising example. It was surprising to me because the daughter who reported it would admit that math is actually one of her weakest subjects and she is actually very concerned about what peers think. But this is what she reported: Last year her teacher threw out a math question and asked the girls to hold up the number of fingers that represent the answer. My daughter says that every single girl in the class except for her held up two fingers. The question was "Which number times itself equals itself?" Only my daughter, according to her account held up only one finger. (I observed that zero may work, as well, but it seems that one was what the teacher was looking for.) I would conjecture that others in the class were able to figure out that one works but saw two fingers held aloft by everyone else and so acted accordingly.
Well, the it is not really wholly surprising that they fell into that trap, much of school culture really pushes for group think. It is rather expected in the way things are set up. But the group sway can turn against the rule, and when enough students decide to openly oppose authority, "the thing to do" changes to following the rule of misrule.
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman (Hardcover - Jun 3, 2008)
BTW the authors grew up in Israel and draw on studies in Israel for a few of their illustrations of the principle of sway. Among their examples is giving what one must know is the wrong answer in an experimental research study that purports to check for visual acuity but really tests the psychological or social sway phenomenon. In this experiment, people are hired to give the answer on a multiple choice that is obviously wrong. The results are that the real subjects of the experiment in that circumstances in most cases give the same wrong answer. These are not subjective questions but things like which of these 3 lines (all very different lengths) match the other line. Most people will second-guess their own judgments and follow the crowd even in something as objectively obvious as this.
Now for my own surprising example. It was surprising to me because the daughter who reported it would admit that math is actually one of her weakest subjects and she is actually very concerned about what peers think. But this is what she reported: Last year her teacher threw out a math question and asked the girls to hold up the number of fingers that represent the answer. My daughter says that every single girl in the class except for her held up two fingers. The question was "Which number times itself equals itself?" Only my daughter, according to her account held up only one finger. (I observed that zero may work, as well, but it seems that one was what the teacher was looking for.) I would conjecture that others in the class were able to figure out that one works but saw two fingers held aloft by everyone else and so acted accordingly.
Well, the it is not really wholly surprising that they fell into that trap, much of school culture really pushes for group think. It is rather expected in the way things are set up. But the group sway can turn against the rule, and when enough students decide to openly oppose authority, "the thing to do" changes to following the rule of misrule.
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