You will be working with 3 different texts for this blog entry!
1. Read the two articles I gave you: "Why So Many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau and "Terror's Hidden Ally" by Laura Spinney.
2. Write about something from the articles that you thought was interesting or even puzzling. You can center your discussion around one particular passage in one of the articles or some of the writers' most interesting points. Just be sure that you are talking about something specific from the text of the articles. No generalizations!!
3. After you have discussed what you found interesting or puzzling about the article, connect those ideas to something specific you noticed in Act I of The Crucible. You could connect to a specific character, quote, or exchange of dialogue. Again be specific; no generalizations!
The article, "Why So Many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau was very interesting. I've never really payed attention to the whole thing about people usually agreeing with each other, but now that it has been mentioned, I realize that it is so true. The survey of the 222 faces being rated was definitely the most intriguing. I thought it was kind of funny that the opinions of the participants changed after they saw what the average rating was.
ReplyDeleteThis survey explains why Abigail goes along with Tituba when she starts accusing other people of being with the Devil. Reverend Hale says that Tituba is the instrument of God so that makes her the "average rating." Abigail is the "participant" and then she starts agreeing with Tituba.
I was very intrigued by the content of the article, "Why So Many Ideas Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau, because speaking from personal experience I know in some cases it's tough to stand by what you think. In the article Landau mentions that people will tend to side with the majority, "even if that view is objectively incorrect". This idea really clicked with me in the Crucible, and that the people from Salem are slowly agreeing with each other, and depending on the influence one towns-person has on another the belief that witches are present in Salem could snowball very fast and very dangerously.
ReplyDeleteThe town doesn't realize it but this problem is starting to become out of control, and soon out of their hands, it's already started with the arrival of Reverend Hale. According to the second article, "Terror's Hidden Ally" by Laura Spinney, chronic hysteria can actually be reinforced by an expert. What the people of Salem hope to solve by asking Reverend Hale to come will only stir up things, not only in Salem Farms but spread like wildfire to Salem Town as well. Spinney's article also notes that if the authorities tell people that they're only suffering from mass hysteria, they begin to lose their credibility. "When you get it wrong, you become part of the problem". With John Proctor arguing against the arrival of Reverend Hale, he will not be stopping the problem but only fueling the fire. With this, the town will grow suspicious of him, and I predict he will soon be accused of being a witch.
I found the second article, "Terror's hidden ally" by Laura Spinney, was quite interesting. It talked about how people do automatically jump to conclusions, and stick with what they think is happening. They thought that there was a terrorist attack on them from Russia, when in reality, it was simply due to stress that the kids were fainting, and having seizures. In the Crucible, everybody automatically thinks that it is witchcraft, and that the kids are possessed. They don't go into any further investigation right away, they simply get one thought in their heads and stick to them, which leads to trouble. The children could simply be fooling around, and nobody would know. People do this all around the world, they get set on one thing, and things always get blown out of proportion, and things take major turns for the worst.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most puzzling in "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau was why people tend to go with a majority view and what happens in the brain that makes this the case. The article says that people agree with a majority view even if they have a different view because the brain regards a discrepancy from the group opinion as an error and fear and anxiety become part of what the brain registers when a person's opinion differs from the majority. I found this information puzzling because I did not know that there was an actual systematic way the brain responded to different ideas between people. In the article it says: "We show that a deviation from the group opinion is regarded by the brain as a punishment." I think it is really cool that the brain registers a different opinion from the majority as bad and that is why you tend to agree with the majority opinion.
ReplyDeleteOn page 47 of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Reverend Parris, Mr. and Mrs. Putnam and Mr. Hale are interrogating Tituba because they think she was doing witchcraft and Tituba , wanting to take the heat off of her, lies and gives them names of people that are witches so they won't put her in jail. Then Abigail, inspired by Tituba, admits that she was doing witchcraft and starts shouting out names of people so that she won't get in trouble. Then Betty immediately wakes from her "coma" and starts shouting out names too. The thing is, Betty actually believes somewhat that the people she names are witches. She is also just copying Abigail because her brain would frown upon not agreeing with Abigail and Tituba. That would make her different and this goes back to how the brain doesn't like to disagree with the majority opinion. Also this is what the Putnams wanted to hear so their opinions get factored into this. So even if Betty knows there are no witches she won't say so because that would be going against everyone else's opinions.
The article, "Why So Many Minds Alike" to me was very interesting. I have always tended to go with the group and never express my opinion or thoughts if it as the article states "goes against the grain." This article now shows me that I am not the only one who does this. In the fourth paragraph the article tells how their was an experiment where females had to rate 222 faces on a scale of 1 to 8 based on physical beauty. The researches then told the participants the average score of each person rated and how their own rating compared. After hearing this each participant did the ratings again and most of the participants changed their opinion toward the average. I most likely would have changed my rating towards the average as well, so I think that it is very interesting how this connects to my way of thinking so well. This way of thinking also connects directly to Abigail's way of thinking in The Crucible. When Tituba begins to cry out the names of the people she saw with the devil Abigail begins to follow along and start crying out names as well. I feel like Abigail did not want to go against what Tituba was doing because she felt like everyone was listening to her and believing Tituba. I also think Abigail thought it would make her blend in and no longer stand out by herself for every one to question her.
ReplyDeleteThe article"Why So May Minds like" was honestly not a surprise while reading it. In the article it says "people look to the group because they are unsure what to do, or they are afraid of being different". This quote from the article is absolutely accurate because it's so true. People are always afraid of being the odd one out so they just follow the crowd so it will be easier for them. Or if they honestly are unsure of something they follow the rest of the crowd since they already have an answer and they don't have to think about it which again makes it easier for them. We are all guilty of it since it's a natural human behavior. All of this connects with Abigail's character in Act one of The Crucible. When the spotlight turns to Tituba she starts going along with what Tituba is saying about the names and accusing the "witches". She didn't know what to do to get herself out of the mess she was in, so she just went along with what she thought was right and started yelling out names and accusing people too. This was just once again another human being going along with everyone else so they weren't the dd one out.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the article, "Terror's hidden ally" by Laura Spinney, I thought it was very intriguing. I find it weird that you can be so stressed and worried about something, like the girls from Shelkovsk that were mentioned in the article, that it could make you become ill. It's almost as if you could tell your body that you are sick and automatically, you become sick! I think it is so strange that this can happen to people from just merely their stress. I also think that it is quite interesting that mass hysteria is something that happens in such large groups. That once someone you know has it, you start to worry about it even more and then it is almost like you are poisoned with what it is that you were worrying about. People will conform to these things because they think that because one person has it, it is more at a risk and then the stress is overwhelming. In the play "The Crucible" Betty had become ill and no one knows why. Immediately, everyone starts believing that it is witchcraft and once one person believes it, it spreads like a virus. Betty was terrified by being caught the night before and then became ill. This has to be a case of mass hysteria because of the overwhelming stress she had, not witchcraft.
ReplyDeleteI found that the first passage, "Why so many minds think alike" by Elizabeth Landau was especially interesting to me. it almost confused me because the results of all the study's showed that people usually go with the norm so they don't stick out and that subjects would change their answer toward the average of the group. This confused me because I've had opinions before that were completely different from other peoples or groups yet I've never felt the need to change my opinion based on the majority opinion. I always thought it was important to stand by your opinion because that's your thoughts, opinions play a major role of making you, you. I did however find this study very interesting because if I had to guess I would of thought that more people would stick by their belief or opinion rather then changing their opinion based on someone else's it just seemed weird to me. Reading this also made me think of The Crucible, in the way that people jump on board with other people opinions. Like how in the beginning Parris didn't think everyone should jump to the conclusion of witches but by the end of where we stopped reading he seemed just as sucked in as everyone else in the room.
ReplyDeleteI found the article "Why So Many Minds Think Alike", by Elizabeth Landau, was very interesting. It talks about different experiments that were set up to show how people go along with the majority of what other people are thinking even if the majority thought is wrong. One of the experiments had girls rate 222 faces of other girls on a scale from 1 to 8. At the end, the girls were told what the average (made up average told by researchers) was and how it compared to theirs. They repeated the whole experiment over again and the researchers fond that the test subjects average changed to turn out to be closer to the average they were told. This shows that people really do go with the what other people are thinking and are "afraid of being different". I can relate to this because I often do go with the mob mentality, even when I know it is be wrong. Sometimes it's because of a comfort zone thing or, like Abigail in "The Crucible", they do it to not look different to the group. Before Tituba came in and told everybody in the room who were witches, Abigail was telling people who she thought were witches. Abigail changed what she said after hearing Tituba say who the witches were because it was a little more believable. This just goes to show how being in a group of people can effect ones opinion on the matter.
ReplyDelete"Decades of research show people tend to go along with the majority view, even it that view is objectively incorrect." I found this sentence of "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau to be interesting because I could relate to this sentence as I read it. I think it is very true that individual opinions are affected by other peoples' opinions. I have been in situations where my opinion was affected by the majority of peoples' opinions even though I had a very different idea from everyone else. I think it is hard for people in modern society to say and have their own opinion that is different from everyone else’s because they are afraid of being wrong or of being judged.
ReplyDeleteOn page 44 in The Crucible, Hale and Parris are interrogating Tituba about the night in the woods. Hale is trying to make Tituba admit to being in compact with the Devil. Tituba keeps on refusing and denying that she is conjuring spirits and says everything she can say to defend herself however Hale and Parris are persistent. Parris says “You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!” Tituba then says that “…I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir.” The pressure from Hale’s questions and the group of people in the room standing around looking at Tituba probably influenced her thoughts and created more fear for her. Tituba admits to working with the Devil but says she didn’t mean to harm Betty. Tituba went from denying working with the Devil, to admitting working with the Devil in a short period of time. Everyone in the room believed Abigail when she blamed Tituba for conjuring spirits, so Tituba had to go along with what the majority of the people thought and Tituba had to admit to doing witchcraft or else she would be hanged.
Noelle Marsan
ReplyDeleteThe article "why so many minds think alike" really surprised me! The thing that struck out most to me was when they say that we get fear and anxiety from going against the majority. That's kind of sad that we feel that way. If you think about it, a lot of famous historical figures are revolutionary thinkers. They weren't afraid to go against society's way of thinking. I feel like our generation has a lot of amazing ideas that go against things the older generation stood against. Such as gay marriage and specific gender roles. I respect the people who were the first to stand against issues like these.
There are few characters who actually go against the norm. Abigail deffinitily goes against it by trying to elope with John Proctor. He wants to just live a comfortable life with his wife. Parris is suck a people pleaser that he barely even thinks for himself. I'd say he is the one who follows society the most. Some might think that the girls who went with Tituba to the fire aren't following the norm, but they kind of are. They all go together, and are in it together. all in all the people of Salem barely think for themselves.
I found the article “Why so many Minds Think Alike” very true. The theories they gave on why people conform their opinions to the majority, I agree with. “The two leading theories of conformity are that people look to the group because they’re unsure of what to do, and that people go along with the norm because they are afraid being different.” This I find true with myself, even with this assignment I read other peoples blogs just to see if what I was doing was similar to everyone else. It is a scary thing to be different. It could cause to being bullied or looked upon differently; no one wants that. I also think that sometimes people do not trust what their opinions. I know I like to have reassurance about a stance I have on something. People want to be on the right side of the opinion, so when someone see that the majority goes against that opinion, they automatically think they are wrong because they are in the minority. People do not relies that just because more people believe in something doesn’t make it right. We see that in with the Salem Witch trials, the majority of the town believed that there were witches among them. I’m sure however, there was a good amount of people that questioned that there were witches around. However, the majority of the town was sold that there were witches so it spread and people conformed their opinions. The Changing opinion is a very dangerous thing, there is evil in the world and if people are easily influenced then evil may prevail.
ReplyDeleteIn The Crucible, everyone in the town lives their life’s by the same belief system. Everyone is labeled as Puritan because the majority is, so therefor everyone shares those beliefs because no one wants to be different. They also think that it must be right beliefs because, that is all they know. So when the girls went into the forest it was deemed as wrong by their society. Because everyone shares the same beliefs, they have no freedoms. Abigail has no choice but to lie because she knows all of society will look down on that behavior. But, we know she does believe it is OK to do something like that, because she wouldn’t have done it if she felt it was wrong. We see in this book what happens when everyone conforms his or her opinions and it is not a good thing.
The article entitled "Terrors Hidden Ally" By Laura Spinney was one hundred percent like the Crucible. Everybody believed it was a terrorist attack against them when it really wasn't. They believed whatever they wanted to believe was true, even if it was completely irrational. They all thought they were being attacked by the Russians and almost made a huge thing out of it. There was no terrorist attack, the kids just had a lot going on.
ReplyDeleteIn the Crucible, everybody automatically jumps to the idea that it's witches and nothing else. They think that nothing can save their children, and start panicking. There is no rational thought behind their frantic actions. This happens everywhere. People can a set idea in their heads and that's what they roll with, even if it makes zero sense. Even if it makes things out to be a lot bigger than they really are. Betty may have the flu, or a stomach bug! She may not be bewitched. You never know and shouldn't jump to conclusions until you know for a fact.
Mike Capoccia
ReplyDeleteThe article "Why So Many Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau was a very interesting article. It talked about how so many people think alike and just go with the flow without having to actually think for themselves. One of the experiments was done with brain images and how the brain will produce an error signal when the one persons opinions is different than the rest of the group. This can be shown when an opinion deviates from the rest of the group this is regarded by the brain as a punishment.
This really is fascinating to know because so many people do just go with the group and throw out there own different ideas. This also shows just how powerful the brain can be and how it can influence how one feels about a topic. This thought process also shows in the crucible when one thought of the community will overrun any individual thoughts and just swallow up the community as a whole. When Abigail starts to shout at names and points fingers, almost everybody sides with her and doesn't think anything different.
Kelli Hayden-
ReplyDeleteIn "Why so many minds think alike" by Elizabeth Landau, she talks about how some pepole are unsure of what to do so they go with what everybody else is doing, even if they think that it's wrong., because they don't want to be the only person that is different than the rest. This happen is The Crucible when Tituba started to call out names that the Putnams put into her mind to say, so that she could save herself from getting killed. As Tituba does this, Abigail jumps in and starts calling names, and then Betty wakes up and starts calling out names of people who bewitched them. And they just keep spilling out names because they don't know what else to do to get everyone else to stop asking if it was Abigail or Tituba who had bewitched Betty. Everyone belives them and doesn't question them.
Personally, I find both articles very interesting. Specifically "Why so many minds think alike". I personally am very interested in phycology and why people do what they do, so I was very interested. It is amazing that the brain doesn't like not being part of the norm. I originally thought it doesn't have any effect at all. This compares to act 1 because of the scene in act 1 where everyone was shouting out names. It seems like a lot of the girls would have never started shouting out names if the others weren't already doing it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I questioned most in the reading "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau was why people tend to go with the majority view. The article says that people agree with a majority view even if they have a different view because the brain regards a discrepancy from the group opinion as an error. This error then leads to a feeling of fear and anxiety. I found this to be interesting because I did not know that there was an actual systematic way the brain responded to different ideas between people. In the article it says: "We show that a deviation from the group opinion is regarded by the brain as a punishment." I think it is really cool that the brain registers a different opinion from the majority as bad and that is why you tend to agree with the majority opinion. On page 47 inThe Crucible, Reverend Parris, Mr. and Mrs. Putnam and Mr. Hale are interrogating Tituba because they think she was doing witchcraft and Tituba , wanting to take the heat off of her, lies and gives them the names of people that are witches so they won't put her in jail. Then Abigail, wanting the spotlight, admits that she too has seen the devil and has written her name in his book, and wants to saved. Then Betty immediately wakes from her "coma" and starts shouting out names too. She is also just copying Abigail because her brain would frown upon not agreeing with Abigail and Tituba. Also the names that were mentioned were the names that the Putnams and Parris asked were there. So even if Betty knows there are no witches she won't say so.
ReplyDelete"Why So Many Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau was a very interesting article. In it she talks about how there are some pepole that are unsure of what to do, or what to choose, or what choice to make, so much so that they go with what everybody else is doing, even if they think that it's wrong. they do this because they see that the majority of the people around them are doing the opposite, or choosing something diffrent so the figure that they must have a missing piece of inromation that I didnt get and they don't want to be the only person that's different from the rest.
ReplyDeleteWhen Mr. Hale was interrogating Tituba because they thought that she was doing witchcraft, Tituba wanting to save her life, lies and gives them the names of people that were previously mentioned by Mr. and Mrs. Putnam. following that Abigail, wanting the spotlight, decides to falsly admit that she too has seen the devil and has written her name in his book, and wants to saved. And right after she mentions this and starts spouting out the names of some of the peole in the town, Betty immediately wakes from her "coma" and starts shouting out names too.
"Why so many minds think alike" by Elizabeth Landau makes me think about the very ending of Act 1. Specifically, it makes me think of the Mob Mentality that everyone had. There were 2 main examples of this mob mentality- All of the adults banded together to interrogate Tituba about her witchcraft, acting as one single angry creature rather than seperate entities. The other was all of the girls of Salem combining together to spout out names of "witches". Even though none of them were saying it out loud, all of them had silently come up with the agreement to begin this act. A prime example of Mob Mentality. Even Betty goes along with it, and she had been feigning a coma for the rest of the act.
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