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Chapter 1: What are collective illusions and why do they matter?
Have you ever gone along with something you didn't actually believe in just because everyone else seemed to? Maybe at work, online, or even with friends. There's a name for that phenomenon, collective illusions. And it turns out they may be shaping our culture, our politics, and even our personal decisions far more than we realize.
That's why today's SYSK trending topic is the dangers of collective illusions. In my conversation with author and researcher Todd Rose, we discuss how entire groups of people can privately disagree with an idea while publicly supporting it.
If you've ever wondered why bad ideas can spread so quickly, or why it sometimes feels risky to say what you really think, this conversation will make you see human behavior in a completely different way. And we'll get to it right after this. You're about to hear a conversation on a topic I doubt you've ever heard of before. It's about something called collective illusions.
Chapter 2: How does conformity influence our decision-making?
And trust me, this is really fascinating. You see, it's human nature to want to conform. to be part of the group. The problem is that we often conform even when we don't want to, when we don't believe in what we're conforming to. How many times have you not disagreed with someone and either stayed silent or just went along? Well, why did you do that?
Well, it turns out we all do it, and it can lead to some real trouble. So I want you to meet Todd Rose. He's a social scientist, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of a book called Collective Illusions, Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions. Hey, Todd, thanks for coming on Something You Should Know.
Chapter 3: What role does social media play in shaping collective illusions?
Hey, thanks for having me, Mike. So explain what's going on here. Explain what collective illusions are.
Look, I mean, we all know that human beings have a conformity bias, which is we're hardwired to want to be with our groups, not against them. That's not new. And we also know that that can lead to kind of groupthink, right, where we just go along with the group just because we want to belong.
What I'm writing about is a darker side to that conformity, which is what we call collective illusions, and it's this. They're social lies, right? They happen in situations where most people in a group go along with a view they don't agree with just because they incorrectly think that most other people in the group agree with it.
And so as a result, the entire group can end up doing something that almost nobody really wants.
Chapter 4: Why do people self-silence in group situations?
That seems really stupid.
Yeah.
And yet I think when I hear you say that, and I think when anybody hears you say that, they go, yeah, I've kind of suspected that, that it does seem that we go along maybe thinking, well, you know, it's not worth speaking up, and we'll just go along and do what the group wants.
Okay, it's one thing to go along, but it seems wild that we would just be wrong about the group to begin with, right? So it's how our brains are wired. But here's the trick. for conformity to work, you have to know what the group actually thinks. Otherwise, what are you conforming to? And this is the rub. So the way your brain figures out what group consensus is, is a pretty flimsy shortcut.
Chapter 5: How can collective illusions affect our perception of success?
Your brain assumes the loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. And so you can kind of already see the problem with that, right? Like, If you are wrong about the group to begin with because you've got a vocal fringe and a bunch of people are self-silencing, then you're going to think they're the majority, and if you want to conform, you'll conform to that fringe, and it becomes reality.
Again, that's so stupid.
Right. Here's the thing. This idea of collective illusion goes back 100 years in research and hundreds of years just in general understanding, but they were rare. because it just was hard to get a lot of people to self-silence and get that kind of misread of the group. But because of social media today, they're just rampant.
Chapter 6: What is the impact of collective illusions on everyday life?
I mean, they are all over the place. And let me give you more specifics about that, which is if you take just Twitter, so we know that about 80% of all content on Twitter is generated by 10% of the users. And it turns out that 10% isn't remotely representative of the rest of the country. They tend to be more extreme on almost every social issue. But you can see the problem there, right?
Like if only 10% of people hold an opinion, but you think it's 80%, then your brain will treat that as the majority. And if you're not willing to go against that group, you'll just say nothing. You'll self-silence, right? And if enough of us do that, then the result's a collective illusion. And right now in America, that's exactly what's happening.
Chapter 7: How do fringe opinions get amplified in society?
Our research and other people's research have shown that about two-thirds of Americans admit to self-silencing right now. Two-thirds. So, no wonder we have collective illusions all over the place. Like, our self-silencing guarantees it.
Wow! Two-thirds of people don't speak up for fear of not conforming.
Yeah, and here's what's interesting. You know, some of them report that it's due to, like, cancel culture that gets all the attention, but it's actually a small percentage.
the overwhelming reason why most people self silence is decency they actually don't want to hurt people's feelings they don't want to create conflict and they believe incorrectly that other people are just too sensitive these days and yet when we ask people in private opinion research about their own views you know 75% of Americans are like I'm not sensitive I would like to hear other opinions but they are so convinced that everybody else is just fragile and
Chapter 8: What steps can we take to combat collective illusions?
that they're just self-silencing, and now we're just living under this, like, cascade of illusions.
So in daily life, give me an example of where this is a problem. Maybe not so much political or social media kind of things, but it happens just every day, right?
It does. I mean, you think about it, just anyone who's listening, you know what I mean. We've all had those moments where we thought we're the only ones in the room who hold a certain view, and rather than speak up, we just say nothing, right? And... That's happening. It's happening in our families. It's happening in our workplaces. It's certainly happening in higher education.
And it's affecting, like you said, not just our politics, although for sure our politics. It has seeped into everyday issues that matter, like, for example, even our definition of a successful life. What could be more personal than the life you want to live? Well, at my think tank, Populous, we did one of the largest private opinion studies ever on what people mean by a successful life.
And in private, what you get is their trade-off priorities, including things you wish people cared about, like relationships and character, just being a good person, getting a good education and making a contribution in life. But when you ask them what most Americans would say, you get a completely different picture.
They think everybody else cares about zero-sum, someone's got to lose for me to win, and it's all about wealth, status, and power. And to put a finer point on that, out of 76 possible items that we had people trade off in terms of what matters to them for success, they thought that most Americans valued being famous more than anything else.
So they just think most Americans want to be famous, and that's their view of success. And it turns out in private, it is actually dead last. So illusions don't get bigger than that. But you can think about just the practical consequences here.
If we're all under this illusion of fame, then advertisers and TV producers, when they want to signal success, they sell us fame back to us because they think that's what we want. And then we look at those commercials and storylines and say, Well, obviously people care about fame. Why would they sell it to us if we didn't? And so we're stuck in this illusion.
And I'll say one more thing about this, that the practical consequences of collective illusions are that this generation's illusions tend to be next generation's private opinion. And in the case of fame is exactly what we're seeing. So my colleagues at UCLA have been studying middle school kids for, for quite a while. Like what are they internalizing from society and from media and,
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