Random Thoughts: November 2021. Can the Asch Experiment Explain Vaccine Hesitancy?

It's been a while, but what can I say? It's been a crazy few months. Life goes on. Everyone still has their opinions, their little delusions. A friend recently imparted some wisdom my way: opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one, and they all smell.

Something I've found myself coming back to for a while is why - in the face of undeniable facts (think climate change, anti-vax, anti-mask, fake news etc.) - are there groups of people that choose to reject said facts. For me, it all boils down to the following:

Our want to self-delude for peer acceptance far outweighs our want to accept the truth and act as individuals (go against the group).

Maybe this is a gross over-simplification... But, it is somewhat uncanny how much of human behaviour (especially in light of recent events) can be explained by a longing for group acceptance, or the unwillingness to go against the group. It seems that humans yearn to be part of the group, even if that means the acceptance of certain delusions. There is a famous experiment that exemplifies this called the Asch experiment.

In the experiment, the volunteer takes part in a 'vision test', as part of a group. In this test, the individuals in the group are asked to identify which of 3 drawn vertical lines are the longest (A, B or C), and call the answer out. Unknown to the subject, the rest of the group are paid actors. The test proceeds and the paid actors consistently call out the wrong answers. In most cases (around 75%), the subject conformed at least one of their answers to those given by the group, regardless if they thought the answer to be incorrect. 5% of all test subjects were always swayed by the crowd.

Could this very human behaviour explain the persistent vaccine hesitancy from certain groups around the world? Surely the situation is more complicated, but this human behaviour is so often overlooked as part of the explanation, that maybe it needs to be explicitly stated. It's no coincidence that vaccinations differ significantly between political affiliation, but not race or ethnicity.

What's the silver lining? Well, the Asch experiments found that if only one other paid actor gave correct answers always, the level of conformity dropped significantly.