Conformity

Solomon Asch conducted the above experiment in 1962. This experiment was repeated in recent times by USF with the same results.

People will agree with others or follow them even when others are wrong. Conformity is everywhere. Government, industry, marketing and advertising. People think they are setting out do something different and yet all they wind up doing is more of the same.

Conformity of the group is the reason great ideas get mauled in research, much like a hapless victim getting mauled by hungry lions in a Roman Colosseum.

'Innovation', is the most powerful word invented to help us live in a state of denial about being conformists in our actions. This is specially true of marketing and advertising. In recent times, I have been to meetings and presentations that I can recall were seen as 'innovative' fifteen years ago. Innovation is used to describe anything from a front-page takeover of a daily to creating a Facebook page. 

I guess, being a conformist must be lucrative. There are a lot of them around.