Let's do a little social experiment. Care to join?

I have been laughing and quite intrigued since I learned something new today and I believe y'all will find it fascinating as well. But before I reveal what it is, I will like to ask a question and I want you to follow along and keep the answer in mind till the end of this article. First of all, allow me to set the stage for the question.

Imagine you moved to a new town and one day you went out to have dinner and you saw two restaurants sitting side by side. The first restaurant's name is Tasty treats and the second one is Wendy's and they both look very similar with a very beautiful environment and great interior design. But nobody is eating at Wendy's while Tasty treats have some people eating there, which restaurant will you pick? Now keep that answer in mind as we continue with the rest of the article 😉

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Ok. I spent a lot of time on Twitter today just browsing through my feed and learning new things and that was when I came across a particular tweet involving monkeys in a room and a banana hanging from the ceiling. The tweet talked about how the group of monkeys will always gang up and beat any monkey that tries to climb a ladder to get to the banana. And why did they do that?

It's because the monkeys have been made to believe that something bad will happen if anyone gets hold of the banana. I won't be explaining more about the tweet coz this article will end up very looooonng, but if you're interested then you should read it here. Trust me it's very interesting 😉. In the comment section, someone said those were animals and it can't happen to humans, so someone posted a video of a similar experiment being done on humans and that was when I went to YouTube to do some research.

Social Conformity

Did you watch the above video? What will you do in such a situation? You might think you will remain seated but if you're a stranger in a place like that, the compulsion to conform to what looks like a norm among the majority of people there will be very strong! You can see that someone tried to resist that pull to follow the crowd but in the end, he also joined them to do what they are doing 😂

Social Conformity is what is also called herd mentality and it's something that has been proven to work over and over again. People that are familiar with psychology must have heard about this concept ( @Princessbusayo you must have come across it before, right?) and it's very intriguing and quite true if you think about it. It's things like this that makes me love psychology.

Humans are social creatures and whenever we are not sure about what's going on, we look at what the majority of people around us are doing and then just go along with them because we believe they know something we don't. It even happens to most people who know what's right but because everyone else is choosing another answer, they begin to doubt themselves and end up following the crowd as well.

The above video is even more funny 😂

Now, back to the question I asked earlier, let's walk through it together. Tasty treats and Wendy's are both new restaurants that opened in the city on the same day and at the same time. The first customer might come and see both restaurants sitting side by side and empty, he is confused about which one to choose so he just goes with his guts and picks Tasty treats.

The second person comes along and sees nobody in Wendy's but someone is eating at Tasty treats and he thinks "there must be a reason why nobody is eating at Wendy's, Tasty treats food might taste better" and then he goes into Tasty treats as well. The third person arrives and figured there might be something wrong with Wendy's and wastes no time before going into Tasty treats.

Some persons might even assume that Wendy's has run out of food and that's why nobody is there, they believe everyone at Tasty treats has done their research so they know better but in reality, Wendy's food actually tastes better but everyone is at Tasty treats because the first person picked it without anyone influencing his decisions but every other person's decision was influenced by the people they see in Tasty treats

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Heck, a rumor might even break out this way. A curious person might just come along and ask someone eating at Tasty treats why there's nobody at Wendy's and since the person doesn't have any reasonable answer and won't like to look foolish by saying "I saw everyone eating here, so I came here also", they might end up saying something like "I heard the food at Wendy's isn't that good" and boom!

The word goes around and Wendy's reputation is ruined without anybody even trying their food. One of the reasons (the main reason actually) why people may end up eating at Wendy's later on is if someone is brave enough to go there and then starts telling people that Wendy's food is actually better, then the reputation will start building up as more people hear about it

These things happen in our daily life as well. There was a day I went to an ATM spot to withdraw some money and I met people in a queue, so I joined them. There was another ATM nearby but nobody was there because everyone assumed it isn't dispensing cash until someone came along and went there to withdraw money and left. The rest of us were just looking at one another in disbelief 😆

Social Conformity is also the reason why a lot of unreasonable customs and traditions are still in place in society. Whenever someone asks why things are been done this way, nobody seems to know a reasonable answer and they only say "this is how it has been done", but why? Nobody can answer why, they just go along with what they grew up doing even if their ancestors that started the practice were wrong.

I have been itching to relate it to religion as well but I won't want to start that violence here 😂. Anyway, the herd mentality isn't totally bad in its way, most of the time it helps you to make a quick decision without having to go through the process of finding out things for yourself and maybe getting hurt in the process. You might go to a new town and you notice everyone is avoiding a particular part of the town, will you go there to find out why they are avoiding it?

Some people might have been declared missing when they went there, and then everyone learned from that experience and decides not to go there as well. BUT the herd mentality becomes a problem when you don't ask questions. Everyone is doing something that is confusing to you but you also decide to do the same without asking questions because you don't want to be left out.

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And guess what? They herd mentality also exists in the cryptoverse! A whale suddenly buys a coin with a very large sum of money, some group of people sees it and believes the whale might know something they don't, so they buy the coin as well. Everyone starts buying the coin because of FOMO and then you too also hop on the choo-choo train because at this point the coin is pumping fast and you don't want to be left out. Herd mentality.

So, which restaurant did you pick from the first question? You're not allowed to change your answer now 😉 Don't worry if you picked Tasty treats, I will pick it as well. I have actually been in some situations like that in the real world and I ended up choosing Tasty treats without giving Wendy's a chance. And if you picked Wendy's, care to explain why you made that choice?

Thanks for reading 💖💖💖

Saturday August 13, 2022