Sable comments on Cross-Cultural maps and Asch's Conformity Experiment - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (16)
Notice that their territory is different from yours. Just that would make you expect their map to be different.
One question that you may ask is whether the bias (the difference between the territory and the map) is a function of the territory: do people in collectivist cultures mis-estimate the prevalent conformity in a different way from people in individualist cultures?
It is not. Consider, for example, one of the issues in political studies: why repressive regimes which present a solid and impenetrable facade tend to collapse very rapidly when the first cracks in the facade appear? One of the answers is that it's a consequence of available information: a lot of people might be very unhappy with the regime but as long as they believe that they are a powerless minority they will hide and do nothing. The first cracks basically tell these people "you're not alone, there are many of you*, and the regime collapse follows soon thereafter.
Note the parallels to estimating the conformity of other people.
Thank you for putting that so clearly.