4 ms·

It's related to conformity. If you automatically, naturally and agreeably fit in with what everybody else does, you won't tend to think outside the orthodoxy.

It's related to conformity. If you automatically, naturally and agreeably fit in with what everybody else does, you won't tend to think outside the orthodoxy. But if you question everything, try to work things out from first principles, and wonder what happens if things are done differently... well, you're "eccentric", at best. It seems logically possible for a person to be a perfect conformist socially, and a wild free-thinker intellectually, but it wouldn't usually happen that way. https://xkcd.com/242/ https://xkcd.com/242/

RealityVoid 8y ago
I honestly do not think that is the case. Using a sample size of one(me) I can tell you that while I'm very agreeable and sometimes too nice to people around me, when it comes to my opinion about things or digging for the truth, I will push and dig and (sometimes recklessly) support unpopular opinions, even if in the minority. I surely can't be that unusual.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  This is interesting. Voicing an unpopular opinion is not "agreeable", but if you can't ever act on your truth, you may as well not have ever had it. My comment, in the context of yours, comes across as childishly excusing/justifying antisocial behaviour. I'm not sure what to thinkn= of that. But I just meant that tendencies tend to transfer.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  Here's the Psych 101 background to my view: people don't just pretend to conform, their perceptions conform https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments By its nature, it's hard to notice this in yourself. I like to think of myself as capable of independent thought. But when I've been solo camping for a few days, some of my perspective evaporates on contact with others, like a dream on waking. It's hard to even notice it leaving. I imagine they leave imperceptibly in daily life.
  - RealityVoid 8y ago
    That is an interesting experiment you highlighted. I was not aware of it. I will point out though that the group that did not want to seem out of step were seemed to be the lest numerous. So while agreeableness seems to have a certain correlation to independent thought I do no think that for the majority of people that is the main blocking point. I think I know myself pretty well, better than most, and this allows me to make a pretty good guess about the way I would react. I think that if I were to answer wrongly to the Ash experiments, I would do so because of what is described in the Wikipedia entry as "distortion of judgment". This stems mostly from my view of the world and my belief that human observation, without aiding tools and methods of quantification, can be very unreliable. That applies for me as well, leading to poor confidence in my direct observation. Thankfully, creating new ideas or solutions has several steps, observation being just one of them, another being the processing of the stimuli into the final idea. This, I consider, is where I am far better than the observation stage. Given a set of observations I arrive at a pretty complex solution and/or idea, and this is where most of my deviation from the norm usually stems. But I am aware of the possibility of mistaken input data of vicing this process, and forming the wrong conclusion because of it. Anyways, sorry if I came of a bit arrogant, this was more of an introspection exercise and me musing and a little bit over-generalizing about the way people think.
heavenlyblue 8y ago
I believe if you're _really_ brilliant - then you are as aware of the beliefs of other people around as much as you're aware of the inherent truths you have discovered for yourself. These two sometimes works together, against each other or are absolutely ambivalent to each other. So the question of eccentricity becomes a question of how do you need to project yourself upon others. "All the world's a stage" as they say.

RealityVoid 8y ago

I honestly do not think that is the case. Using a sample size of one(me) I can tell you that while I'm very agreeable and sometimes too nice to people around me, when it comes to my opinion about things or digging for the truth, I will push and dig and (sometimes recklessly) support unpopular opinions, even if in the minority. I surely can't be that unusual.

hyperpallium 8y ago
This is interesting. Voicing an unpopular opinion is not "agreeable", but if you can't ever act on your truth, you may as well not have ever had it. My comment, in the context of yours, comes across as childishly excusing/justifying antisocial behaviour. I'm not sure what to thinkn= of that. But I just meant that tendencies tend to transfer.
hyperpallium 8y ago
Here's the Psych 101 background to my view: people don't just pretend to conform, their perceptions conform https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments By its nature, it's hard to notice this in yourself. I like to think of myself as capable of independent thought. But when I've been solo camping for a few days, some of my perspective evaporates on contact with others, like a dream on waking. It's hard to even notice it leaving. I imagine they leave imperceptibly in daily life.
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  That is an interesting experiment you highlighted. I was not aware of it. I will point out though that the group that did not want to seem out of step were seemed to be the lest numerous. So while agreeableness seems to have a certain correlation to independent thought I do no think that for the majority of people that is the main blocking point. I think I know myself pretty well, better than most, and this allows me to make a pretty good guess about the way I would react. I think that if I were to answer wrongly to the Ash experiments, I would do so because of what is described in the Wikipedia entry as "distortion of judgment". This stems mostly from my view of the world and my belief that human observation, without aiding tools and methods of quantification, can be very unreliable. That applies for me as well, leading to poor confidence in my direct observation. Thankfully, creating new ideas or solutions has several steps, observation being just one of them, another being the processing of the stimuli into the final idea. This, I consider, is where I am far better than the observation stage. Given a set of observations I arrive at a pretty complex solution and/or idea, and this is where most of my deviation from the norm usually stems. But I am aware of the possibility of mistaken input data of vicing this process, and forming the wrong conclusion because of it. Anyways, sorry if I came of a bit arrogant, this was more of an introspection exercise and me musing and a little bit over-generalizing about the way people think.

heavenlyblue 8y ago

I believe if you're _really_ brilliant - then you are as aware of the beliefs of other people around as much as you're aware of the inherent truths you have discovered for yourself. These two sometimes works together, against each other or are absolutely ambivalent to each other. So the question of eccentricity becomes a question of how do you need to project yourself upon others. "All the world's a stage" as they say.