Wholly Mama
11-06-2006, 10:07 PM
Okay, I wanted to continue this thread because I was really appreciating all the feedback I was getting. To refresh everyone's memories, we were talking about when parents following parenting advice that goes against "common sense", and I was likening it to following any leader's advice, like Hitler's, and wondering if there was a *name* for this phenomenon.
I wanted to thank Ashley and Amy for bringing up the studies that were done.
Here's Solomon Asch's study: http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html
and here's the Milgram Experiment: http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
I think this quote is very telling: "Asch concluded that it is difficult to maintain that you see something when no one else does. The group pressure implied by the expressed opinion of other people can lead to modification and distortion effectively making you see almost anything."
wow.
I also came across something today that relates to this while reading a book on Asperger's Syndrome. Before the concentration camps for the jews, gypsies, gays and lesbians came about, they first tried out these experiments on disabled people. It was accepted in both Germany and the U.S. at the time that mentally disabled people be sterilized so as not to pass on their defective genes. The Germans took it a step further and took children and adults alike and began experimenting with torture, gassing, mass piling and burnings of bodies, etc. So, even before they began altering the perception of jews, they began with the "defective people". Once they were dehumanized, I guess it wasn't hard to keep that line of thought going and see more and more people in a less than human way.
I wanted to thank Ashley and Amy for bringing up the studies that were done.
Here's Solomon Asch's study: http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html
and here's the Milgram Experiment: http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
I think this quote is very telling: "Asch concluded that it is difficult to maintain that you see something when no one else does. The group pressure implied by the expressed opinion of other people can lead to modification and distortion effectively making you see almost anything."
wow.
I also came across something today that relates to this while reading a book on Asperger's Syndrome. Before the concentration camps for the jews, gypsies, gays and lesbians came about, they first tried out these experiments on disabled people. It was accepted in both Germany and the U.S. at the time that mentally disabled people be sterilized so as not to pass on their defective genes. The Germans took it a step further and took children and adults alike and began experimenting with torture, gassing, mass piling and burnings of bodies, etc. So, even before they began altering the perception of jews, they began with the "defective people". Once they were dehumanized, I guess it wasn't hard to keep that line of thought going and see more and more people in a less than human way.