Entrainment

Toxick Bloging: Entrainment & The Psychology of Alternative Selling:

"...Entrainment is not a force but a phenomenon. Entrainment is evidence that energy conservation has occurred. Resisting entrainment requires more energy than entraining with the masses. Holding an alternative perspective means you are processing information in an unconventional manner—your internal rhythm is different from the reverberations of those around you. Maintaining an unusual rhythm requires more energy than entraining with the thoughts of those around you.

But before you flock to the herd, bear this in mind: Faking entrainment can lead to mental breakdowns. This was inadvertently discovered by Dr. Saul Asch in an experiment with such devastating consequences the United States set up a panel to review all future psychology experiments on humans.

Dr. Asch had a person come into a test room, ostensibly to be one of six subjects in an experiment on eyesight and perception, but the study was actually designed to ascertain levels of compliance. The person was actually the only subject. The other five people were actors, students pretending to be subjects. All six were asked which line was the longest of four projected on a screen and labeled: A, B, C and D.

The first several times, the actors would all say that the correct line was the longest. Then, the actors would say the second-to-longest was the longest. The point of the experiment was to determine incidence of compliance and seek any commonalities. Among those people who complied erroneously with the group, meaning that they would agree with the group instead of saying that the correct line was longer; about a quarter of this group had a mental breakdown in the next 12 months.

As Dr. Asch inadvertently proved, stating things differently than how you see them is dangerous to your health, provided you aren’t in a totalitarian government. The truth of the matter is that working in a corporation is akin to being in a totalitarian state. Just as in a monarchy, limited good can come from questioning the reality of your boss, manager or any overlord.

...To stave off negative psychological ramifications, one needs to distinguish between what you hold as true and what you say for work and self-preservation. While somebody is neurotic to the extent they cannot say what they mean and mean what they say, ignoring the real power of overlords is hazardous to your status. Instead, develop your own culture of support outside of your network of work contacts. Many people have found such support through local chapters of the Joseph Campbell Society, Alcoholics Anonymous, Landmark Education among many other non-religious organizations."