Recently I’ve found a very good lifelike example on how careful we should handle what we call ‘the opinion of the majority’. The actual social structures that most of us live in, rely heavily on considering normal what majority declares normal.
The vote of the majority often decides on essential aspects of our lives. My take here is that it won’t hurt if we reconsider their influence on our lives. Here is why.
In a psychological experiment there are 12 people involved. Part of them are going to be hypnotized, given a posthypnotic suggestion. Besides of the one sole suggested difference, they are all going to see reality as normal as everybody else.
The posthypnotic suggestion is, that they should see everybody as being bald. This perception is going to be very real for them. Everything will be the same as for those who were not hypnotized, except they will see only bald people in the room.
The number of the hypnotized persons is 10. After the suggestion being given, they will join the other 2 who were not hypnotized. The 10 will argue that everybody is bald in the room, the 2 will say that most of them actually have hair on their head.
Question: Who is going to be right here?
Leave a Reply