Group Opinion and Personal Judgment

  1. New research out of China suggests that if people know what the average opinion on a given subject is, they will change their personal opinion to be closer to the average opinion
  2. They will do this even if there is no social pressure to hold an opinion similar to the average opinion
  3. Interestingly, this effect only lasts for 3 days or so—after that people tend to revert back to their original opinion
Source: Y. Huang, K. M. Kendrick, R. Yu. Conformity to the Opinions of Other People Lasts for No More Than 3 Days. Psychological Science, 2014