AlaSt_blog

Brain Games is a National Geographic series showing different experiments and explaining how does human brain work. One of the experiments performed is a bit similar to Asch Conformity Experiment and it also shows the power of social conformity. In this experiment, there is shown a group of patients in a waiting room waiting for their eye doctor appointment – all of these people are actors. Every once in a while they hear a beep sound and immediately after that, they stand up. Next, there is shown a  woman who came for her eye doctor appointment and  isn’t aware about the experiment. She enters the waiting room and sees that every time other patients hear the beep they stand up. It took her only three beeps to join the rest and  stand up after hearing the sound. Even though this woman doesn’t understand why other people are doing it, she still does that with them, because she doesen't want to stand out.  After some time, all of other patients (who are actors), ex...

Nico Machiavelli was an early 16th century writer. One of his essays, “The Prince” is thought to be an advice for current and future monarchs. He focused on the question of power; how to get and keep it. During the European Wars of Religion both protestants and catholics blamed Machiavelli for inspiring their opponents to commit acts of violence and tyranny. Even Shakespeare used the phrase “machiavel” to describe an amoral opportunist. Now, the term machiavellian is used as a synonym for manipulative villainy. In his book “the Prince” he introduces the idea that the ends justify the means – so basically any action is acceptable as long as it leads to expected outcome. Decades after the book was published it gained rather diabolical reputation. The philosopher Isaiah berlin suggested that “The Prince” rather than being amoral refers to ancient Greek morality – placing glory of the state above Christian ideal of salvation by individuals. This explanation might not be realistic. Know...

 The study done in 1978 is the first one to replicate Hovland’s discovery about the sleeper effect. It showed the power of this effect and also how big of a difference can a right cue make. A group of college students had to read a controversial news article which was created to influence their opinion. At the end of every article, there was a note informing the reader that the article was filled with inaccurate data. So, the sample of the college students who participated in this study new perfectly well that this article contained false information – but despite this – their opinions were still influenced by it.   It didn’t happen instantly though, at first the endnote scared them but after some time it turns out that their opinions on the controversial topic the article was about have changed. The discovery of this social phenomenon changed the way media approach advertising. It turns out that they don’t need to rely on conscious persuasion. Producers used to focus on p...