Scary Stuff: Choosing Conformity or Courage...Pulling Away from the Pack and Dancing to Your Own Drummer

“The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think.” —David Icke

Early every Sunday morning, John and one of our tween granddaughters strolls down our driveway.  Most of the time, permission is granted for me to tag along.  One of the reasons I’ve started doing it is not just because I enjoy getting outside, but the granddaughter’s conversations is fascinating. This past week it was about being a “furry” and the pull of other people on our thinking and behavior.

Never heard of a “furry” well it’s a bit new for me too. Though you may be baffled, you’ll get the gist of it as you read along.

First our granddaughter confessed that she had been a furry but had given it up. She explained—haltingly at first, then with a rush of words. “This girl at school told us about it. And she was a furry. We thought it sounded cool. So we started wearing tails, cat ears, and whiskers. Sometimes we crawled on our knees and meowed in class. It seemed fun, and everyone in the group was doing it. But one day I stopped and asked—why am I doing this? I’m not a cat. I’m not a furry.”

She grinned sheepishly. “We all decided to stop being furries at the same time. We even burned our furry stuff.”

John, who is the greatest listener, continued walking and being with her during her confession.  I was gob smacked.  It seemed to me as she continued her thoughts and questions that she had stumbled into one of life’s great research interest: How much of what we do—and who we think we are—is influenced by others?

Psychologists have been exploring that question for decades. Solomon Asch’s line-judging experiment showed that even when the truth was obvious, people went along with the crowd nearly 40% of the time. I’ll tell more about that experiment, but truly it is unbelievable that people who can clearly see that one line is shorter or longer than others will not say so if others disagree (they are paid actors).  

Later, Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies revealed how ordinary people could be persuaded to harm others just because an authority figure told them to (I actually know quite well a brilliant man, an engineer, who became a powerful supervisor who was part of the experiments.  When I asked him why he continued giving electric shocks – some of them supposedly almost lethal, to people. He said, “Well, the researcher said this is how the person would learn.” Oh my! And had one of us been there, I’m not sure we would have been so different.  One girl actually cried while administering the shock.)

The lesson was chilling: our desire to belong—or to please—can override our conscience.

As we walked, my granddaughter asked, “How do you stop being so influenced—especially when it’s silly or wrong?”

“That,” I told her, “is one of the most important skills you’ll ever learn.”

Later I thought more about it and came up with three ways that can help.  One of them. #2, has a lot of clear research behind it.

1. Pause and Ask “Why?” Before joining in, take a breath and ask: Does this fit who I really am? Even a small moment of awareness can weaken the spell of conformity.

2. Find the Courage of One Friend. In Asch’s research, just one dissenter cut conformity by 80%. One voice of honesty can steady the soul—yours or someone else’s.

3. Strengthen Your Inner Compass. Prayer, reflection, journaling—these are practices that remind us who we are. The stronger our compass, the less sway the crowd holds.

By the time we turned around and headed back home, my granddaughter had fallen quiet. Then she said softly, “It’s okay to belong, but I don’t have to lose myself.”

Exactly. The good life isn’t about never being influenced—it’s about choosing carefully which influences you allow to shape your soul.

When was the last time you went along with something that didn’t feel quite right? This week, try pausing to ask: What do I really believe?

May you belong deeply, but never lose your truth in the crowd.

May your courage light the way for those still finding their own.

How might we journey together to The Good Life by being aware of the pull of others, especially negative or harmful influences, on our thoughts and behavior and taking steps to resist that pull?

SIDEBAR: More about The Psychology of Going Along (these are only 3 experiments of the at least 10 experiments that I know of which will boggle your mind about the power of the influence of other people on our own thoughts and behaviors.)

The Asch Conformity Experiments (1950s):Psychologist Solomon Asch asked groups of college students to identify which line matched another in length. The answer was obvious, but when everyone else in the room intentionally gave the wrong answer, many students conformed—even though they knew it was false. The lesson? We’d often rather be wrong with others than right alone.

The Milgram Obedience Studies (1960s):Stanley Milgram invited volunteers to deliver electric shocks to another person (an actor) each time they made an error on a word test. Urged on by a man in a lab coat, two-thirds went all the way to the maximum voltage—450 volts—believing they were causing real pain. It revealed how far we’ll go when told to obey authority.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971):Philip Zimbardo’s team turned college students into “guards” and “prisoners” in a mock prison. Within days, guards became abusive, and the experiment had to be stopped early. It showed how ordinary people can be corrupted by roles, rules, and the power of the situation.

Takeaway: It’s not just “bad people” who do bad things. It’s good people who stop noticing how much the situation, the group, and the need to belong are shaping them. Awareness, being mindful, is our first act of freedom.

Peer and authority pressure are everywhere—though rarely as obvious as a white lab coat or a playground dare. And as we age, we think we are above it all.  Research says that older people are not quite as influenced, but still we ARE influenced by others in ways that pull us away from our own values. We older humans may do it in these ways:

• When a whole room stays silent about a hurtful comment.

• When everyone on social media repeats a claim without checking its truth.

• When shoppers rush to buy something because it’s “trending.”

• When group loyalty becomes more important than fairness or kindness.

• Beware of being in a crowd. My good friend, who died not long ago, Gloria Reichman, was the one who warned me about this when...especially it comes to politics. But we know that mobs do things that individuals would never do.

  
  

Each is a modern echo of Asch, Milgram, or Zimbardo.

We can’t escape influence—it’s woven into what it means to be human. And we don't need to beat up on ourselves, but rather give ourselves some self-compassion which will help us become noticers: people awake to what’s shaping us. My granddaughter learned that early, when she burned her furry paraphernalia. The rest of us might still need to ask now and then, “Whose voice am I following—and does it lead toward the values I hold dear and the truly good life?”

This October, a month associated with terrifying stuff, we might experiment with pumping up our courage and doing some truly frightening things - pulling away from the pack and dancing to our own drummer.

BTW, I wrote an article some time back about two researchers who felt they had saved terminal patients by helping them to learn to live "their own lives." I have talked to people who were at death's door when they decided to turn away from the life they had felt compelled to live by others' standards.

Another article I wrote some time back about the power of writing about your values on your stress and cortisol levels during hard times - some help is offered about identifying your values.

And don't feel badly if you have succumbed to the group before, read more about courage and how my friend Juli turned herself around, just click on the highlighted link.

This morning a friend sent a video of herself jumping off this crazy high bridge. She is not a thrill seeker. Rather she jumped (this is a real thing they do with bungees) to challenge her fear of heights. It gave me goosebumps just to watch. John said it gave him new respect for our friend. Well, okay. Why would we respect that? Certainly we are morally elevated when we see someone stand up against an injustice. But jumping off a bridge?

As John and I watched the video, we began to think more about fear. I'm not usually very frightened about having a different opinion than someone else. Usually I will call out an injustice. But I do have fears. Not spiders nor snakes. Not aging. Definitely rodents. Staying by myself when John is gone also makes me quite uncomfortable. And I was reading a book that my friend, Gene Sharratt, gave me written by Arthur Brooks. The section I happened to turn to was on receiving feedback. The fears we have about receiving feedback on our performance for example (and how to get over it). Also delivering feedback can be fear inducing (Brooks mentions how to get over that and be able to deliver helpful feedback. I will share that in the future. It's very helpful.) The whole fear topic and brief discussion gave me deeper understanding about fear... how it is that we humans might deeply fear not conforming to our friend group or displeasing powerful others. It is no small thing to experience it and learn how to deal with.

One reader shared that we go along because the deep seated human need for social acceptance and to the strong desire to avoid social pain (conflict, disagreement, rejection, loneliness - experienced in the brain in the same place as physical pain) is natural, perhaps even adaptive for survival. Unfortunately, it can also suppress our authenticity as well as our integrity and hinders us from actually understanding each other...perhaps keeps us from reaping the value we can get from hearing diverse opinions.