I was thinking of the Asch experiments well before they were mentioned in the article. Notably, I seem to recall reading elsewhere that later attempts to replicate Asch's work failed, and suggestions that the particularly conformist culture of 1950s America was responsible. Yet this article suggests that what the subjects perceived, in the case where the question had an objective answer, actually changed according to brain imaging, not that they were made unsure and went along with the group.<p>"Asch talked about the power of the "minority of one." When a unanimous group pressures the individual, that group is weakened as soon as one person breaks off."<p>Wouldn't it be more accurate -- and perhaps more revealing -- to call this the "minority of two?"
<i>The research calls into question decision-making bodies that operate by consensus, Berns said. For example, in the U.S. legal system, many cases are decided by the unanimous judgment of the members of a jury.</i><p><i>"You can't separate those judgments from the fact that you have 12 people who have to come to a unanimous decision, and have to conform their opinion to each other, so of course it will distort how they view evidence," he said.</i><p>I wish the article expanded a little more on that point... It's both interesting and terrifying.
This is significant for entrepreneurs. Apple was absolutely on to something when it said: Think Different. Why think different? Because the masses are wrong. (In fact, the masses are asses. =) ) And this is why many startups and entrepreneurs are perceived to be pursuing inane, crazy or irrelevant ideas. Prevailing wisdom isn't, and it takes a crazy dreamer to ignore the massive and overwhelming tidal wave of group think.
My take on why so many people think alike and any idea you have is usually thought up already; is that people get the same inputs.<p>We all read practically the same news, read the same top ten books, watch the same Tv. talk about the same subjects. Sure we all have different areas(Software Entrepenuers -> HN) but in reality we all have the same inputs and outputs no matter how special we feel.
This seems to explain why many brilliant people also have such unusual quirks. They do not gravitate towards this "average" mentality (at least in some fields), and this allows them to develop greater than average ideas in other fields. Of course, none of them can truly be said to be "perfect" in their resistance to to the norm, but there seems to be a correlation. Just my $.02
This explains a lot, in my mind, about how otherwise intelligent people can get pulled into cults and various other troublesome situations that rely on a prevalent group-think. It's not that you can't think of why something is wrong, but there's a strong natural impulse to go along with the crowd regardless of how wrong it is and you may know it to be.