Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.

[NasEscobar]

Human beings seem to crave comforming to others. Using LeStat's example of religion, most people originally join that religion because the people around them (family, friends, community) also do. Why do so many people in America become Christians rather then Muslim? Why is it the opposite in most of the middle east?

It's the same for political opinions. When I first started paying attention to politics I was a Neoconservative christian. Of course, this is because my parents espoused the same beliefs and positions, and when I got into politics (after 9/11) a very popular (at the time) neoconservative christian was president. If you spoke out against what the President did post-9/11 you were unpatriotic, you don't hate America do you? Luckily I was able to think critically and eventually abandon those beliefs, but apparently the 88% of Americans that are religious weren't that lucky.

There was a very interesting study we went over in my social phych class about conformity. One guy asks five people (they answer one at a time publicly) and four of them are in on it leaving one that isn't. The question is an incredibly simple mulitple choice question a four year old would get right. The four that are in on it give the same wrong answer. The fifth one looks bewildered but still goes along with the rest of the group! Repeated many times with different subjects the subject would agree with the rest of the group something like 80% of the time! Interviewing people afterwards the subjects would say that they were confused but figured their initial answer was wrong since no one else gave that answer.

They also said that even if the lone subject was right they didn't want to take a chance of being the only person wrong and that it is more comforting to part of a group that got a question wrong then be the only person that got a question wrong.