Do Great Minds Really Think Alike?
Do Great Minds Really Think Alike?
When we think about a group, we think about a weekly book club discussing its latest romantic novel of choice, a group meeting to discuss a child’s grades in school, or even a group of people on jury duty contemplating a major decision. But what we don’t realize as well is groups are families, friends and co-workers. On a daily basis in life, groups of people are influencing on how a specific person reacts to a problem, solve a situation or even make up their mind. Humans rely on support from others and commonly conform to the thoughts of others, but also will commonly be the first to say they have their own opinion at the same time. When it comes to creating a definition of “group mind”
If a group of girlfriends are arguing about which Spice girl is married to the hottie David Beckham, and you know it’s Posh Spice, but all of your friends say its Baby Spice, what do you do? Take a look at Figure 1 for a humorous cartoon on conformity. Author Doris Lessing says, “But we also find our thinking
changing because we belong to a group. It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group”(724). When put on the spot people’s opinions can change significantly, whether you’re right or wrong. A group has its own mind, based upon its beliefs. If all of your friends say it’s Baby Spice, more than likely you will conform to your group due to the pressure being persuaded upon you. This helps in finding the definition of “group mind”, that being a group must have a group mind, you must all agree upon a single answer. If your group is right, you’re wrong, and if everyone agrees, the group then has a mutual understanding.
What’s interesting in defining a “group mind” is the ratios of people arguing against each other in a group. If three people are saying, “yes” and two people are saying, “no” how does a group mind come to a consensus? Solomon E. Asch a social psychologist has done multiple experiments on how groups influence individual thoughts and he says this, “As long as the subject had anyone on his side, he was almost invariably independent, but as soon as he found himself alone, the tendency to conform to the majority rose abruptly”(730). Essentially, if one person in a group thinks something is wrong, but the rest of the group thinks something is right, the individual will most likely conform to the group consensus in fear of being wrong. “When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends”(Asch 730), “Group mind” consists of consensus as a whole, even if it means putting the fire out on an
individual