sarahconstantin's Shortform

sarahconstantin

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"Most people succumb to peer pressure", https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/u3919iPfj

Most people will do very bad things, including mob violence, if they are peer-pressured enough.
It's not literally everyone, but there is no neurotype or culture that is immune to peer pressure.
- Immunity to peer pressure is a rare accomplishment.
- You wouldn't assume that everyone in some category would be able to run a 4-minute mile or win a math olympiad. It takes a "perfect storm" of talent, training, and motivation.
- I'm not sure anybody "just" innately lacks the machinery to be peer-pressured. That's a common claim about autistics and loners, but I really don't think it fits observation. Lots of people "don't fit in" in one way, but are very driven to conform in other social contexts or about other topics.
- Evidence that any culture (or subculture), present or past, didn't have peer pressure seems really weak.
  - there are environments where being independent-minded or high-integrity is valorized, but most of them still have covert peer-pressure dynamics.
- Possibly all robust resistance to peer pressure is intentionally cultivated?
  - In other words, maybe it's not enough for a person to just not happen to feel a pull towards conformity. That just means they haven't yet encountered the triggers that would make them inclined to conform.
  - If someone really can't be peer-pressured, maybe they have to actually believe that peer pressure is bad and make an active effort to resist it. Even that doesn't always succeed, but it's a necessary condition.
upshot #1: It may be appropriate to be suspicious of claims like "I just hang out with those people, I'm not influenced by them." Most people, in the long run, do get influenced by their peer group.
- otoh I also don't think cutting off contact with anyone "impure", or refusing to read stuff you disapprove of, is either practical or necessary. we can engage with people and things without being mechanically "nudged" by them.
- maybe the distinction between engaging in any way and viewing someone as your ingroup is important?
- or maybe we just have to Get Good at resisting peer pressure (even though that's super hard and rare.) Otherwise the next time some terrible thing happens to be popular, we'll go along with it.
  - like...basic realism here. most things don't last forever, it is an extraordinary claim to say that your virtue would survive any change in your culture.
upshot #2: "would probably have been a collaborator in Nazi Germany" is not actually that serious an accusation. it just means "like the majority of the population, not at all heroic." in good circumstances, non-heroes make perfectly fine friends and neighbors. in bad circumstances, they might murder you. that's what makes the circumstances bad!
- and don't be too quick to assume that someone who's never been in bad circumstances would be a hero. it's just hard to tell ahead of time.

Julian Jaynes would say that this is how human consciousness as we know it today has evolved.

Which makes me wonder, what would he say about the internet bubbles we have today. Did we perhaps already reach peak consciousness, and now the pendulum is swinging back? (Probably not, but it's an interesting thought.)

3Myron Hedderson2y

"Peer pressure" is a negatively-valanced term that could be phrased more neutrally as "social consequences". Seems to me it's good to think about what the social consequences of doing or not doing a thing will be (whether to "give in to peer pressure", and act in such a way as to get positive reactions from other people/avoid negative reactions, or not), but not to treat conforming when there is social pressure as inherently bad. It can lead to mob violence. Or, it can lead to a simplified social world which is easier for everyone to navigate, because you're doing things that have commonly understood meanings (think of teaching children to interact in a polite way). Or it can lead to great accomplishments, when someone internalizes whatever leads to status within their social hierarchy. Take away the social pressure to do things that impress other people, and lots of people might laze about doing the minimum required to have a nice life on the object-level, which in a society as affluent as the modern industrialized world is not much. There are of course other motivations for striving for internalized goals, but like, "people whose opinion I care about will be impressed" is one, and it does mean some good stuff gets done. Someone who is literally immune to peer pressure to the extent that social consequences do not enter their mind as a thing that might happen or get considered at all in their decision-making, will probably face great difficulties in navigating their environment and accomplishing anything. People will try fairly subtle social pressure tactics, they will be disregarded as if they hadn't happened, and the person who tried it will either have to disengage from the not-peer-pressurable person, or escalate to more blunt control measures that do register as a thing this person will pay attention to. Even if I'm right about "is immune to peer pressure" not being an ideal to aim for, I still do acknowledge that being extremely sensitive to what others may

5leogao2y

I won't claim to be immune to peer pressure but at least on the epistemic front I think I have a pretty legible track record of believing things that are not very popular in the environments I've been in.

sarahconstantin's Shortform

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sarahconstantin's Shortform

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