Recently I came across the old research on conformity (Asch conformity experiment, 1951). The conclusion of the research was: “we sacrifice the truth for social connection”. I heard this statement many times before in different contexts and narratives, however, the conclusion was always the same: “humans would rather forfeit their own truth and values for popularity and social connection”.
Something didn’t sit right with me about the research this time and I started digging online for more information. It didn’t take long to find several articles discussing the mistakes and weak points in the research. I also learned that the outcome of the research wasn’t so obvious and that much more would need to be done to confirm this old claim. However, it looked like the original research made much more impact on our thinking about conformity over the years than the following articles denouncing it’s credibility.
I wonder how often it happens in life? The words once said, or written cannot be taken back. Even if we hear over and over again that it wasn’t the truth or a meaning was different, the original claim sticks with our memory much better.
Do you remember a claim about the vaccines causing autism? In 1998, a study appeared in The Lancet claiming that measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism in 12 children. The study stirred fear and controversy among parents and physicians and caused a ripple effect that remains even now — over two decades after the initial article.
Several studies and articles have proved since that the original Wakefield study was not only conducted “dishonestly” and “irresponsibly,” as stated in the retraction of it in February 2010, but that the data were “bogus.”
However, there are still thousands of people in this world that remember Wakefield’s article and consider everything else ever published in this matter a “world wide conspiracy” or a “huge lie” and would swear on having evidence confirming the honesty and authenticity of the first study.
I am not going to speculate now what makes us, humans, so susceptible to information manipulation. I only want to point out the power of words. Words not only spoken or written in research and science, but all the words we tell ourselves and others; our judgements, words of anger, our convictions and beliefs offered freely in conversations, our unsolicited opinions.
Once we say something, it starts living its own life; we cannot take it back. Once we hear something, it is impossible to “unhear it”, We may try our best; we may explain to ourselves again and again that what we have heard made no sense and it wasn’t true, and still remember the initial impact the words had on us.
Maybe it is worth thinking about it before we decide to offer some kind of opinion, criticism, or advice to others. Maybe it would make sense to implement a Buddhist four rules on speech:
– is it kind?
– is it necessary?
– is it honest?
– does it improve upon the silence?
Hm, it even sounds like a good “New Year’s resolution”…
By Eva Sadowski Photo: Prateek Katyal/Pexels
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