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Study proves 95% of people really are sheeple
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 by: Mike Bundrant
(NaturalNews) Scientists at the University of Leeds have conducted research that proves the tendency many have to act like sheep, unwittingly following crowd as if they didn't possess a reasoning mind. While this tendency may have its uses in some situations, such as planning pedestrian flow in busy areas, it doesn't inspire a ton of hope for humankind.
The study showed that it takes a minority of just five percent to influence a crowd's direction - and that the other 95 percent follow without even realizing what is going on.
Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments in which groups of volunteers walked randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a few received instructions regarding where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one or intentionally influence anyone.
The findings in all cases revealed that the informed individuals were followed by the others in the crowd, forming a self-organizing, snake-like structure (or flock of sheep, take your pick).
"We've all been in situations where we got swept along by a crowd," said Professor Krause. "But what's interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren't allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn't realize they were being led by others at all."
Scary. Are we such sheeple that we allow a few "informed" people to lead us around without even knowing what's happening? Sadly, it makes sense. How many fall for scams of all kinds because of friends or "informed" sources, from pyramid schemes to religious hoaxes and political coverups. We seem to believe just about anything, or blindly tolerate it as long as the message is delivered with enough social credibility.
How to be your own person
There some things you can do to not only avoid living as a sheeple, but enjoy a full, prosperous and exciting life to boot. Here are a couple of the fundamentals that sheeple tend to miss.
Determine what you want in life. Over 25 years teaching Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) I've asked thousands of people the question what do you want? I've been amazed at the incredibly low percentage of people who can answer it. What are your primary goals? Which direction are you headed? Where do you want to be in five years? The most common answer: I don't know. We'll see what happens. Perhaps one in ten can answer with certainty and specificity, which looks like this:
My top 3 goals right now are...
In five years my life will be different in the following, specific ways...
The primary obstacles in my way are the following...
The skills I need to develop to accomplish my goals are the following...
No one can predict the future, but few things serve us better than intentionally pursing a chosen future, rather than waiting to "see what happens." If you do not choose your goals, your family, friends, community and culture will do so for you (knowingly or unknowingly). This is called status-quo. Not surprisingly, status quo is not that inspiring.
Learn to make intentional, full decisions. So many of our decisions are not well considered. In NLP, we learn that decisions and motivation are simply comprised of visual, auditory and kinesthetic (feeling oriented) phenomena. These are the building blocks of mental processes. Bad decisions, impulsive decisions and ultimately regrettable decisions are so often missing a building block. We make impulse decisions without discussing things (missing the auditory). We make emotional decisions without considering other options (missing visual and auditory). Or we get caught in mental loops with no exit (endless internal dialogue with no feeling that prompts toward action).
In all of these cases, because we lack the foundation for solid decisions, we are vulnerable to the whims of others. If we lack the ability to discuss and analyze decisions, we may accept someone else's analysis as gospel. If we tend to make emotional decisions, we may fall prey to whomever can pump us up into an emotional state. If we can't bring our thoughts to completion with a feeling of certainty, we may just do what others are doing to get ourselves out of the endless internal loop.
Fascinating we don't teach goal setting and decision making skills in our education system. These help form the foundation of real character and individuality - and protect us from over dependency on the ideas or opinions of others.
Make your decisions with all of your building blocks in place and with a clear set of goals in mind. This will keep you out of the realm of the sheeple.
quote:The findings in all cases revealed that the informed individuals were followed by the others in the crowd, forming a self-organizing, snake-like structure (or flock of sheep, take your pick).
Study seems flawed. This would actually mean that 100% of people are sheep because the control group obviously doesn't count. Their 5% was arbitrarily pre-selected. They could have chosen ("informed") 3%, or 10%, or even 50% and would have gotten the same results (that those remaining would follow). Unless of course the series of experiments revealed that a group of individuals would only be willing to follow a certain number of individuals amassing at least 5% (doubtful).
Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007
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The gist of the article has validity to it; this is obvious in countries like the U.S. or Saudi Arabia. In the U.S. for example, only a few people are actually rising up against increasing austerity measures and erosion of basic democratic rights. The remainder just expect somebody else (the few activists who actually go out and take action) to rise up for them. Few people actually listen to government claims and big business news media with a critical eye; the rest just accept anything politicians and media personalities say as gospel truth. It doesn't get any more sheepish than that.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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How much times are people going to allow there rights to be trodden on until they realize we are in trouble.
To not be an sheep, people must learn about whats going on in the world, and make changes where needed.
We will not be free, unless we break away from the matrix trying to enslave us and steal our rights as Human Beings.
Working hard is something thats an given, but we must spend time with our children to show them an better way of Life. The matrix is looking to trap as much people in their brainwashing as possible.
Hence the reason for twitter, facebook etc. To think that we have websites asking people to "follow" there favorite entertainer and learn what they are doing in there lives. We must not follow man, because man can only lead to violence and corruption.
God is unchanging, and ever loving and shows us an better way to live our life in this cold heartless world. Sadly people would rather follow there friends to places of badness and torment then allow God to wash away there sins.
And for those who don't believe in God, Well they must realize that with all the suffering going on around the world that they too must cling to something, so they cling to science, Atheism etc. As an Christian God never told me to only help fellow Christians, but help ALL PEOPLE. We must push for greater respect for our citizens and for free will to be respected. We are the MAJORITY, yet we allow the minority to rule our very lives. The more we ignore trouble, the more it will affect us in the future. We have more then enough food in our world to sustain All people on earth, yet we allow outsiders to destroy farmland looking for Gold, oil etc. We must stop also the GMO foods, thats an shame and should never of happened. Food on this planet is provided by God to sustain life, yet we see people starving in Somalia etc. This world is an strange place. With time and knowledge, we should see an shift in thinking more about People and less about entertainers. In canada we have this bell canada "Lets Talk" where we will be discussing mental health and ways to help people overcome there illness. When people come together to change society, It shows that It can happen and with great results. We must continue to support our brothers and sisters and hope for an day where we can live peaceable together and not be afraid of our neighbours even though they may be different from us.
Diversity is one of many great gifts we have as human beings, and we should try our best to uplift each other and not walk over each other. We must let Love take control and show us the way to an better way of living. It's possible but we must try and grow together despite our differences.
One thing I will say is that don't think something bad will happen in 2012, usually bad things happen when we least expect it. Look for 2013 to be the trouble year.
Peace
Posts: 9651 | From: Reace and Love City. | Registered: Oct 2005
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