The Paradox of Unanimity

[woolf woolf]

I came across an interesting article written by Lisa Zyga (Why too much evidence can be a bad thing, phys.org). The idea is that unanimity of opinion or interpretation about something is often misleading, and she demonstrates it with practical examples. I'm sharing it because I'd like to know what you think of it.

[Garcia24]

Not much.

[JeanW]

As George S Patton once said:   If everyone is thinking alike, then someone is not thinking.

[Kell]

In cases where people know what the answers of other people were before making their answer, then it becomes much more likely that each subsequent person will make the same selection, e.g. There is a line-up and criminal #4 is the actual perpetrator of a crime witnessed by several people. The first person selects criminal #3 in a line-up and remarks to the next person before they go in, "#3 is definitely the guy!" then the next person is much more likely to look harder at #3 in the line-up and superimpose features onto that person that more clearly match what they saw themselves, making themselves believe they are in fact choosing the person they saw.

 

In cases where no mention or comparison is made with other people, it is less likely that will happen.

[Nollaig]

Personally I find it quite interesting! Only skimmed it but will come back to it later. I was already aware of what Kell explained above because I'm interested in social/group psychology and it is quite fascinating just how capable we are of lying to ourselves by either editing our experiences or fabricating them entirely so as to not feel excluded by a group.