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zoobyshoe
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I met a guy recently at a coffee house who, coincidently, turned out to be pretty interested in neurology, like myself, and he told me about a study that showed that when people stick to their guns and refuse to conform to the group consensus they experience increased activity in the amygdala.
The amygdala is an important emotional governor, most notable the center of the "fight or flight" response. It triggers anger or fear, apprehension, vigilance for signs of danger. The implication is that people tend to conform because not conforming makes them fearful or angry.
I did some googling and think I may have found the research he was talking about:
http://www.zainea.com/socialconformity.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15978553&dopt=Abstract
(The first link is an article, and the second an abstract of a study.)
If there's anything to this it explains many things: why kids cave to peer pressure to drink and do drugs, why the people who challenge Relativity, or any mainstream idea, seem contentious and angry more often than not, and so on.
The Amygdala:
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/amygdala.htm
The amygdala is an important emotional governor, most notable the center of the "fight or flight" response. It triggers anger or fear, apprehension, vigilance for signs of danger. The implication is that people tend to conform because not conforming makes them fearful or angry.
I did some googling and think I may have found the research he was talking about:
http://www.zainea.com/socialconformity.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15978553&dopt=Abstract
(The first link is an article, and the second an abstract of a study.)
If there's anything to this it explains many things: why kids cave to peer pressure to drink and do drugs, why the people who challenge Relativity, or any mainstream idea, seem contentious and angry more often than not, and so on.
The Amygdala:
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/amygdala.htm
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