I liked how he talked about his work ethic and how he cares so much about putting on a good show. That's the kinda stuff that makes me want to go see a comic like him perform. Some people feel their job is just busy work and it doesn't mean much and I imagine a lot of people are right about that. There are some tasks and jobs you do though where other people are involved in watching you or relying on you that you really want to get it right. It's a sort of social pressure that I think separates those who care and those who really work hard on perfecting themselves in certain areas that I like.

The power of social pressure and influence on a lone individual can be so overwhelming. Even if a person believes they're still in in right the projected guilt of people (or power) spinning their version of reality has such power. "I will not name names".

There's also the possibility they will select "false atheists", who are simply theists who are "angry at God" for some tragedy in their life. They can be persuaded to come back to the church with some of that touchy-feely circular reasoning. If you've every heard of a very religious person who says they used to be an atheist, that's what happened to them. They never actually rejected magical thinking, or fully embraced logic and reason.

There are also "agnostics" who for one reason or another felt out of place in the church they were raised in, and eventually convert to another religion where they feel welcome and included. Again, these are people who never actually saw what lies were being told, and were acting purely on the social pressures.

Women earn .75 to the dollar compared to men with the SAME JOBS.

IQ is not an good experiment. You can't be serious. The same sort of pseudoscience is used to justify discrimination all over the world. The IQ test only shows that the test is biased towards white people. Major overhauls of the current IQ test are the subject of a significant amount of research.

This guy completely ignores the role of social pressures. In most modern societies, women are discouraged by there own families from persuing science.

I think there is some level of truth to the proposed phenomena, though like most things the reality is much more complicated than the presentation; there are a lot of factors to consider.

In one instance its pretty well accepted that social norms are a powerful force for humans, and in many ways a positive force for civilized society, or any society for that matter. There would be chaos if everyone was constantly bucking against established norms. Of course that is not to say social norms are always good or reasonable.

Second, there's individuality. There are those who will conform quickly and those who will buck against an established norm longer, or never stop no matter the consequences(anti-socials). The longer someone bucks against a bad norm, in the case of the stairs and bananas, the more likely they are to prove the norm unnecessary.

In the presented example there is only one method of communication among the monkeys, beatings. In such a circumstance I'd give the situation more credibility, however the point of the presentation is to apply it to real world phenomena, where we simply have the ability to question why which puts the whole scenario into loop.

I think the conclusion drawn at the end is a bit of far stretched tripe. While social pressure is a force oppressive governments use, it is not the only method. Yes they get those who don't question them to enforce their will through social pressure, but they will also continually try to maintain the reason behind their social norms as another form of fear. Social pressure will only last so long in the absence of perceived threat. To clarify, I'm not saying it magically goes away, there tends to be a lot of fighting when a norm changes. But it will happen unless there is something that can be pointed to by those who follow the norm and say, SEE WE WERE RIGHT! And again proving one is right using false 'truth' is just another factor in a line too limitless to explain why people fear a threat that isn't true, misrepresented or no longer valid.

he is so right about atheists, without religion as a moral barometer (wait, we measure morals via atmospheric pressure? does that mean morals are subject to social pressures?) this explains why there are so many atheists in prison these days. damn near 0.209% of the US prison population is atheist!

My definition certainly does fit with the wiki definition you pasted. Do you not consider a crime motivated by prejudice to be intimidation, or an attempt to terrorize? (Although I should have included (individual) along with community.)

I've heard the argument you posted many times, and I agree that these laws should not be used dishonestly as a way to silence others, but I've never actually seen this type of exploitation played out in real life.

In my experience, this argument is usually cited by people* who have bible-based problems with gay people, and feel they* can't address them publicly because of social pressure. Their* problems have nothing to do with law - as they* can go around banishing gays to hell all day long without any fear of being arrested. Their* problems lie with the growing cultural acceptance of gays, and the resistance they get from the general populous when they* criticize gays. I believe 'culture war' is the term they* use to describe this.

*My new Christian friend and sparring partner 'smoorman' is not included in this group, as he supports the human/civil rights of 'gay people' even if he doesn't support their lifestyle. (Better? )

Anyway, nice conversation. You forced me to do some thinking on this issue. Feel free to bust my chops whenever you like.

Mate, i think you've completely misread my post.

I'm saying that political correctness (ie. the need to enforce "black history month", the need to force people to say "chalk board" instead of "black board") is, i would say in most cases, counter-active to racial equality. And that's what morgan freeman is saying.

Racial equality is when no one even thinks about the need for black history month. To draw one's own connotations of racism from any use of the word "black" and ban it as a result is counter productive.

What i suggest IS treating others with respect. I hope i'm clearer now, i'm sure we're talking about the same thing.

I'm sure we agree on this matter and this is a misunderstanding, otherwise i don't understand your viewpoint at all!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
>> ^dannym3141:
I've always said this for years, as long as we have political correctness - ie. the need to enforce necessary AND UNNECESSARY changes to how we communicate - racism will never be gone. You draw attention to racism and i would say encourage racism by kicking up a fuss when someone demands that we use "chalkboard" for "blackboard".
This world has enough problems with racism without searching for it around every corner. Something that a lot of activists fail to realise.


I knew these words were going to be forced into some kind of conservative political ideological mold.

Morgan Freeman isn't suggesting we ignore racism. After all, MLK, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks' 'fuss kicking' brought equal rights under the law to everyone. Freeeman is merely saying that black history should be included as a year-round part of American history, and not relegated to the shortest month of the year.

Also, I don't get people who have such a huge problem with treating others with respect. Is the social pressure to say Asian instead of oriental really that oppressive to you?

>> ^dannym3141:
I've always said this for years, as long as we have political correctness - ie. the need to enforce necessary AND UNNECESSARY changes to how we communicate - racism will never be gone. You draw attention to racism and i would say encourage racism by kicking up a fuss when someone demands that we use "chalkboard" for "blackboard".
This world has enough problems with racism without searching for it around every corner. Something that a lot of activists fail to realise.


I knew these words were going to be forced into some kind of conservative political ideological mold.

Morgan Freeman isn't suggesting we ignore racism. After all, MLK, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks' 'fuss kicking' brought equal rights under the law to everyone. Freeeman is merely saying that black history should be included as a year-round part of American history, and not relegated to the shortest month of the year.

Also, I don't get people who have such a huge problem with treating others with respect. Is the social pressure to say Asian instead of oriental really that oppressive to you?

^
If an individual experienced various phenomenon like an in utero hormonal spike that masculinized or feminized the parts of the embryonic brain that were undergoing the most development at that stage... or if they're genetically one gender but by all other measures another gender... than there's no reason for them to go against their nature.

The Bible has 0 to say about either of those conditions. Really, the Bible doesn't even know what a biological cell is. Social pressure to conform to uninformed interpretations of holy texts seems fallacious.

Because up til now social pressure has caused a significant percentage of gay men to enter into a hetero marriage and have kids. So they pass on the gay gene to their kids.

That may or may not be a factor, but the fact is that homosexuality exists in lots of species, and most animals dont have social pressure like we humans do, It is more likely a misfiring of our sexual and social lust, and when I say "misfire" I mean that in the clearest not-that-theres-anything-wrong-with-that terms,

"Misfirings" and "happy accidents" are really important parts of the greatest and only show on earth, evolution. Our general nice behaviour towards total strangers, for instance, is a misfiring of our tribal rule of thumb that says "be nice to everyone you meet" since in a world without jumbojets or even cars, we are likely to meet them again.

If homosexuals can't reproduce how come they haven't become extinct?

Because up til now social pressure has caused a significant percentage of gay men to enter into a hetero marriage and have kids. So they pass on the gay gene to their kids.

Rednecks and right-wingers have it all wrong if they want to eliminate homosexuality. If you want to get rid of gays, allowing gay marriage and gay adoption is the best way to go!

Grimm makes a very good point, though only a few states in the Gulf enforce wearing the veil there is alot of cultural and social pressure to do so, the reverse choice is not given, most can't just take up Western styles.

Some Muslims I have met in the west are Muslims not because they believe it wholeheartedly sometimes but because it is inherently different and more rigid in its beliefs and practices. I thought that was a mistake.

However to this video's defense it is trying to raise the issue of having choice regardless of the situation, one should be allowed to do as they want, if you want to wear a veil so be it, if you want to be emo so be it, its about intrinsic personal choices.

My professor mentioned these experiments as an example of misinterpreting experimental results and the importance of debriefing your participants.

The wrong interpretation of this experiment, without aid of debriefing, is that group conformity is making people believe something that they wouldn't otherwise believe. Whereas the more correct interpretation seems to be that bored undergraduates don't care enough to pay attention or make waves and just want their extra credit.

The video above mentioned two possibilities- the subject who genuinely believes himself to be wrong and the subject who just doesn't want to make waves. But I don't think that emphasizes just how little vested interest the subject actually has in the experiment. They have no motivation to be correct! Of course you can get a measurable social pressure when the task is completely meaningless. And still, 2/3rds of the time people still say the correct answer.

Anyway, with this experimental setup only the first possibility is really interesting in my opinion. And apparently Asch died without know which possibility was dominant.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments and
http://www.zainea.com/socialconformity.htm (I don't accept the interpretation the authors give in that study).

The Milgram experiments are much more informative about authority pressure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Good stuff. Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments are a fascinating look into how everyone is capable of evil under the right circumstances, particularly when there is social pressure to conform.

By the way, does anyone else think Zimbardo would make a good Lucifer look-alike? Some horns and a little red make-up... too bad the voice would give him away.