Call Yourself an Independent Thinker? Guess Again. Ep. 15

So the concept is, it was labeled consensus effect, which really is to me summarized into groupthink.

And the pros and cons of, you know, we did not, as people, we surround ourselves with others that kind of share our beliefs or thought process or values.

You do? We're trying to break that on this show.

But that makes us kind of maybe overconfident that our opinions are the right way.

So we can kind of delve into that.

So starting off, I guess, have you had any experiences of groupthink? No.

You know, in your time.

Yeah, all the time.

Yeah, I'm obviously susceptible to it as well.

I mean, I think generally we all like to be around people who kind of affirm our beliefs and share similar opinions and have similar interests to us.

So it's not without surprise that it's a thing.

But yeah, I mean, just an example I could think of, especially in my prior profession in law enforcement, It's a career where you do tend to spend a lot of time around people who have a very similar experience to you.

And that leads to certain beliefs, certain behaviors, certain thinking patterns that are not necessarily shared by everybody else.

And I don't think you always realize it until you're around a group of other people that make it obvious.

One example I can give is in law enforcement, I can't stand.

I'm assuming here, I'm assuming a lot of people in this profession cannot stand responding to civil matter calls, neighborhood problems, disputes.

I'm talking like an example would be the calls you get for, my neighbor's porch light's too bright.

I need cops to come and speak to them.

I've been in environments and this is where it's become apparent to me is, you know, I'm in a group at an event around people who are not in law enforcement.

And, you know, you, you, you find yourself telling stories, talking about work, you know, the normal kind of superficial conversations you have.

And, i've been in positions where i'm like yeah it's freaking this last weekend really sucked and they're like oh why you're like i want all these civil matters like people just calling on their neighbors they don't know how to communicate and complaining about porch lights on barking dogs oh the tree's encroaching on my fence so they they call the cops and i'm assuming that

everybody will find that that everybody

finds that stupid and then but you're met with those eyes where someone's looking back at you like what's wrong with that

yeah I've called that I've made that call before and you're like yeah

yeah and I've been in that position where you get that response where you can tell you can tell their eyes are looking back at you like what is wrong with that and then you feel kind of like oh shit Maybe they don't agree with me.