This will be the last in a series of columns on the political implications of various psychological phenomena. Today’s topic is the idea of suggestibility/conformity, commonly referred to as peer pressure. Recognizing that humans are social creatures, and that successful functioning of society requires some amount of conformity to group norms, psychologists devised experiments to analyze this concept.
Two of the most famous of these were the Asch Conformity Experiments, and the Stanford Prison Experiment. The former seemed pretty benign, and even humorous or ridiculous, while the latter was equally as creepy as the “learned helplessness” dog-shocking experiments I wrote about in Wednesday’s column.
In the 1950s, Solomon Asch conducted a number of experiments that showed the strength of the pressure to conform to group behavior. One of the best known of these – which was also featured on an episode of the “Candid Camera” show – involved a test subject walking into an elevator filled with people who are in on the experiment.
Instead of facing the doors of the elevator like normal people, the participants all turned and faced the back of the elevator. The test subject very often ended up mimicking them, and either turning to face directly backwards, or at least turning parallel to or tangentially away from the sliding doors.
At Stanford, researchers devised a role-playing experiment involving dividing a group of college students randomly into two groups: prisoners, and prison guards. The experiment turned so creepy so quickly – the “guards” became callous and even sadistic toward the prisoners, and the “prisoners” became subservient and blindly obedient – that it had to be terminated after only six days.
Like much academic research, these experiments in part “proved” common sense ideas that were largely known. (Providential warnings about the danger of running with a bad crowd and folk sayings like “birds of a feather flock together” have been around forever.) And like the other psychological tendencies I’ve written about, pressure to conform happens in all groups, and on both sides of the political aisle.
For example, when I was refreshing my memory on the Asch conformity experiments, one contemporary example came immediately to mind: virtue signaling. Every group – social, religious, ethnic, political – believes in certain virtues, and signaling to the group that you possess those virtues is a quintessentially conformist act, for good or ill.
And I acknowledge that this is true of both conservative and leftist political communities, though it has become a more significant/trendy topic for discussion on the left in recent years.
Right-wing virtue signaling – though it wasn’t often called that – traditionally involved clear displays of either patriotism or religiosity. Most honest conservatives really are patriotic about America…but cynical RINOs will happily wear a flag pin on their lapels, and cynical GOP businessmen will fly ginormous American flags over their car dealerships to ingratiate themselves with their red state/conservative customer base.
And conservatives are markedly more religious than their lefty counterparts; in America that usually means they are Christian, but it is often accompanied by embracing the Old Testament and “Judeo” part of “Judeo-Christian” too. But slick GOPers have also been known to put Bible verses in their advertising and in their shops to court Christian customers.
Lefty virtue signaling is very well known. Smug yard signs (“In this house we believe: science is real, no human is illegal…”) and suicidally naïve bumper stickers (“CoExist,” man!) tell you the story even when the owner isn’t there to do the preening in person.
Of course, as a conservative, I think that right-wing virtue signaling is generally more benign than the left-wing kind, in large part because it involves causes that are ACTUALLY virtuous, like love for America, and for God.
While not flawless (of course!), America really is a great country, and on balance, really has been a force for good in the world. The Founding Fathers were an amazing group of people with big brains, big hearts and big balls (shout out to that DOGE kid!), and they did impressive things. While their flaws were common to all nations – toleration for slavery, for example – their virtues were rare, and deserving of our patriotism.
And being as Christlike as you can really IS a noble and salutary endeavor, because Jesus is the best and highest example of a Man. (I might even go so far as to call Him the way, the truth and the life. But I’m biased.)
So aligning yourself with the Shining City on a Hill, and the God who died on one, is a wise choice. Additionally, doing so comes with a powerful built-in disincentive to become proud and arrogant, since Christ also warned against signaling our own virtue to create a public display. (See Matthew chapter 6 if you are so inclined, where He criticizes performing acts of righteousness in front of others for the sake of being noticed.)
Compare that to leftist virtue signaling, which IMHO usually involves signaling something that is not actually virtuous — socialism, class envy, racialism and identity politics are NOT morally admirable causes – or else is done dishonestly.
Examples of the former: Proclaiming that there is no difference between a man and a woman, or that one can become the other. (That’s not virtuous – it’s just stupid.)
Pretending to believe Palestinian reports (which means Hamas reports, i.e. lies) that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. (That’s an insult to the memories of IDF soldiers sacrificed in the process of minimizing civilian deaths, as well as an insult to our intelligence.)
Preaching hatred of white folks, or financially successful people, or females who object to being slapped by the phalli of “trans” “women” in their locker room. (Shame on you all!)
Examples of the latter: Claiming that climate change is going to wipe out all human life, and thus that having a big carbon footprint is participating in Gaia-cide…while you have a YUGE carbon footprint from your multiple mansions and private jet flights to Davos.
Claiming that you are an ally of noble “undocumented” immigrants…while you tossed the actual illegals whom DeSantis flew to your Martha’s Vineyard retreat onto departing buses like John Wayne heaving anonymous extras out onto a dusty street through saloon windows or swinging doors.
As I was writing this, I came across one more great example: a video clip of the leftist, rapping moron who calls himself “Bad Bunny,” who inadvertently provided a great example of a leftist, virtual-signaling Saturday Night Live audience proving themselves to be a bunch of braying, conforming sheep last weekend.
Needless to say, I only saw the one clip, and not the entire episode of SNL hosted by Bad Bunny, for many reasons. First, he followed in the footsteps of leftist idiots giving themselves ridiculous names like “Destiny” and “Charlamagne Tha God,” and of imbecilic rappers who give themselves ridiculous names like 4Xtra, Megan thee Stallion, and Dum-azz and the Holes.
(Okay, I made that last one up. But it’s no dumber than the others.)
He’s also an America-hating moron who raps in Spanish. I’ve heard a few snippets of French rap and Spanish rap, and they are even worse than rap snarled in English.
Yikes. I just searched “German rap” and listened to an agonizing 30 seconds of two “songs.” And I stand by my total disdain. I would have thought that nothing could be worse than listening to rapid-fire use of the N word (“Who you callin’ narwhal, narwhal? Narwhal, please!”) But it turns out that throwing in some rolled “r”s and Germanic phlegm somehow increases rap’s terribleness!
And Bad Bunny is such a hypocrite that he wouldn’t even pick a Spanish rap name for himself, since he’ll make a lot more money from a low-IQ English-speaking audience as “Bad Bunny” than he would as “Malo Rabbit-o.” (I’m NOT looking up the Spanish translation of that idiot’s name! I quit that after I learned that Willie Brown’s old side-chick was “Que Mala.”)
Where was I? Oh yeah.
B-squared started off his monologue touting his upcoming gig as the Super Bowl half-time-ruiner, before going into several sentences of Spanish. The studio audience applauded wildly, and then he switched back to broken English: “Eef joo di-unt unnerstand what I jus’ said, joo have four mon to learn.”
Yes. Let’s all spend the next four months slaving away on Rosetta Stone so that we can be prepared to appreciate the sub-literate yapping of Culo Rabbit-o during the Super Bowl. Idioto!
What struck me was that I know that most of that audience doesn’t understand Spanish, and yet they applauded like a bunch of trained seals. (And that’s an insult to trained seals, since they can do a lot of charming stunts, what with the ball-balancing and the clapping and that weird barking that they do.)
It reminded me of something that nagged at me, until I finally placed it. A few months ago, the great Shane Gillis hosted the ESPY awards, and he played an amazing prank on the woke audience. He said, “Four-time WNBA all-star Brittany Hicks is here. Give it up for Brittany,” and pointed to a black woman in the room, who waved while the entire crowd applauded enthusiastically.
And then Gillis pulled the rug out: “I’m joking around. That’s my friend’s wife. I knew none of you knew WNBA players.” The crowd got very quiet, and he said, “That’s crazy, that you clapped for that.”
Ahhh! That is chef’s-kiss perfect! An entire auditorium full of virtue-signaling wokesters, falling all over themselves to cheer for the black female athlete they all LOVE in the sport they definitely support and watch ALL THE TIME…
Annnnddd… they just pantsed themselves on camera, revealing their utter hypocrisy. Just like those morons at SNL, applauding for Malo Pendejo Rabbit-o rambling in a language they pretended to understand.
Here’s a few final thoughts to start your weekend:
Although the Asch experiment proved that people are susceptible to the pressure to conform, it also revealed some contrary points. First, not everybody succumbed. Over various trials, 5% of subjects conformed all of the time, 75% of participants conformed at least some of the time, but around 25% never conformed.
Many follow-up experiments also showed that young people have the highest rates of conformity, which sounds right: the young are more impressionable, and more subject to peer pressure. It also helps to explain why way more of those under 25 identify as or support LGBTQ identity, support the “Palestinians” over Israel, find political violence acceptable, and vote for Democrats.
I know: not very encouraging.
On the other hand, the most heartening finding to me was the power of one lone, non-conforming person. In an elevator in which everybody faced backwards, the pressure on the subject to face backwards was great. But if just one other person faced the right way, almost all test subjects would face the right way.
I take some comfort in that, and I think it explains a lot of the turnaround in this country over the last handful of years. Not too long ago, relatively few college students would openly call themselves conservative, or say that men can’t become women, or stand up for Jewish students on campus, or criticize feminists, or BLM, or mask mandates.
We’ve still got a long way to go, and the leftist elites in legacy media, and public and higher education are still fighting hard, even in retreat.
But a relative handful of influential conservatives and non-leftists have pointed out that the Emperor has no clothes. They’ve faced the front of the elevator, and many people have watched them, and listened to them, and followed their example.
Call it the Charlie Kirk effect.
Let’s all do our best to build on it.
Hamas and Trantifa delenda est!
Martin Simpson 