People Shun Popular Beliefs

The conclusions of a new research seem to indicate that people become more convinced of their own opinions when learning that the majority of other believe something else. When the popular belief disagrees with their own, some individuals tend to take their own beliefs even more seriously. The discovery puts a dent in theories which argue for the collective wisdom of crowds. There are numerous reasons for which people behave in this manner, investigators say, quoted by LiveScience.

“It may be that you feel proud, because you were able to disprove, in your own mind, an opinion that most people have accepted. You actually become doubly sure you were right,” says Ohio State University (OSU) professor of psychology Richard Petty. He was the author of the new research, details of which will appear in the upcoming print issue of the esteemed Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The expert underlines the fact that other studies revealed a tendency in the general population, which has individuals influenced by popular belief only in areas they know little about, or in which they are not interested at all.

“If a decision isn't important, it often seems easiest to just go along with what everybody else is thinking,” the team leader adds. He explains that, unlike other investigations into popular beliefs, the test subjects he and his team analyzed actually had a chance to devise their own answers and beliefs in response to some questions, before hearing the popular belief on the matter. During the experiments, Spanish undergraduate students were asked to examine the conditions present at an international company where they were told they might work in the future. Each participant was presented with either weak or strong arguments depicting the company favorably.

Speaking why test subjects tended to dissent to the generally-held view of the company, Petty adds that “People may be thinking that, 'If I can find the flaws in a position that the majority of people believe, then my thoughts must really be good ones'.” This type of reasoning makes the individuals convinced that they are for example on to something that everyone else ignored.