Doris Lessing Group Minds Analysis
“Group Minds” Critique
The majority of people tend to view themselves as independent human beings. It is their belief that the responses they provide are based on their personal knowledge of the subject. However, in Doris Lessing’s article “Group Minds,” Lessing discusses the lack of individualistic thinking that is present when people are involved in a group setting. In the article, Lessing describes how the pressures of the majority group almost always seem to overrule the minority’s decision even when the minority is correct. The statements proclaimed in Lessing’s article are similar to those stated in Solomon E. Asch’s article, “Opinions and Social Pressure” and Saul McLeod’s titled “The Milgram Experiment,” in that they are both in agreement on fact that the majority will nearly always overtake the minority.
Lessing’s article starts by making the audience realize that everyone has been involved with a group at some point in …show more content…
However, Saul McLeod, author of “The Milgram Experiment,” discusses an investigation that was done by Stanley Milgram into how far people are willing to go to obey an authority figure. With the investigation, Milgram was able to carry out “18 variations of his study” all requiring an instructor, student, and teacher as well as some form of punishment for disobeying an authority figure (McLeod 587). The outcome of his experiment was not the anticipated results instead he “found that few participants could resist the authority figure’s orders, even when the participants knew that following these orders would result in another person’s pain” (McLeod 583). That experiment demonstrates how afraid people are of responding with the truth when repercussions are a
The majority of people tend to view themselves as independent human beings. It is their belief that the responses they provide are based on their personal knowledge of the subject. However, in Doris Lessing’s article “Group Minds,” Lessing discusses the lack of individualistic thinking that is present when people are involved in a group setting. In the article, Lessing describes how the pressures of the majority group almost always seem to overrule the minority’s decision even when the minority is correct. The statements proclaimed in Lessing’s article are similar to those stated in Solomon E. Asch’s article, “Opinions and Social Pressure” and Saul McLeod’s titled “The Milgram Experiment,” in that they are both in agreement on fact that the majority will nearly always overtake the minority.
Lessing’s article starts by making the audience realize that everyone has been involved with a group at some point in …show more content…
However, Saul McLeod, author of “The Milgram Experiment,” discusses an investigation that was done by Stanley Milgram into how far people are willing to go to obey an authority figure. With the investigation, Milgram was able to carry out “18 variations of his study” all requiring an instructor, student, and teacher as well as some form of punishment for disobeying an authority figure (McLeod 587). The outcome of his experiment was not the anticipated results instead he “found that few participants could resist the authority figure’s orders, even when the participants knew that following these orders would result in another person’s pain” (McLeod 583). That experiment demonstrates how afraid people are of responding with the truth when repercussions are a