Monkeys have color or black and white vision. Does the monkey see the world in black and white or in color? How do sharks see the underwater world

Vision in a monkey occupies an important place among its six sense organs. It helps to navigate in space, get food and defend against danger. But the most surprising thing is that the vision of different species of monkeys may differ.

Instruction

According to scientists, mammals, including monkeys, lost color vision at the very beginning of their evolution, having lost two of the four opsins, the light-sensitive protein gene. This is why almost all animals now have black and white vision.

However, some monkey species eventually regained trichromatic vision. Like humans, they have three types of light-sensitive cells that are tuned to the wavelengths characteristic of green, red, and blue. Vivid representatives of such monkeys are gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, as well as howler monkeys living in Central and South America.

New World monkeys see differently. Nocturnal South American Durukuli, for example, have monochrome (black and white) vision. Male spider monkeys and clawed monkeys are dichromatic, unable to see shades of green or red. But in females of these species, tricolor and two-color vision occurs in a ratio of 60:40. Since monkeys live in large groups, having even one female with tricolor vision makes it much easier for the whole group to survive.

It is still not known for certain what gave impetus to the development of tricolor vision. Some scientists attribute this to the loss of a significant part of the sense of smell, others to the way of life and nutrition, since only color vision allows monkeys to find young and succulent leaves of certain plants that certain species of monkeys feed on.

Meanwhile, monochromatic and dichromatic vision also has its advantages. The first allows monkeys to better navigate in the dark, which is especially important for nocturnal fools, and the second helps to recognize the disguise of predators and prey. The latter are grasshoppers, lizards and frogs mimicking with the help of light.

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We are not able to see the world through the eyes of animals (but we would like to), but thanks to science we can imagine how things familiar to us look like in the eyes of our smaller brothers.

website collected 10 vivid examples of a different perception of the world.

10. How sharks see the underwater world

Until recently, there was an opinion that sharks did not see well. However, studies and experiments of scientists have refuted this assertion. Sharks see the world around them faintly gray or green light, and objects - clear and contrasting.

9. How snakes see the world

Special snake organs designed for perception of heat sources, help to find prey in the dark and protect themselves from large predators. This ability to see heat sources is not found in other animal species.

8. How dogs see the world

Dogs don't know red from green, both of these colors - from yellow and orange. Many people do not even suspect that, looking at a traffic light, a four-legged friend does not distinguish what kind of light is on there. The dog is guided by how the brightness of the eyes of the traffic light changes, and by the actions of the people around it.

7. How bees see the world

Bees see a wider color spectrum, including ultraviolet light. This allows them to easily find pollen on flowers.

6. How cuttlefish see the underwater world

Despite the incredible ability to change the color of their body, cuttlefish vision leaves much to be desired. The pupil has W-shaped form and only one photoreceptor, which allows them to see only shades of gray.

5. How sparrows see the world

Our little friends we meet everywhere see the world through rose colored glasses.For some reason, sparrows do not like the color blue, and are also afraid of shiny, sparkling stripes.

4. How eagles see the world

The eagle is able to see prey from a distance. several kilometers, if the bird at the same time helps itself with a movement of the head, then this distance can double. An eagle can scan an area of ​​an area with great care. 13 km².

3. How owls see the world

At night, owls can see 3 times better than humans. They have no eyeballs. The organs of vision of owls should rather be called "eye tubes", but they more than compensate for the lack of binocular vision with excellent night vision and farsightedness, which makes owls ferocious nocturnal predators.

The book talks about how people around us influence our behavior in simple, subtle and often unexpected ways for us, how social influence can help solve common problems; when is the best time to follow the crowd; how to increase your influence and how to use these ideas to build more successful and productive social connections. For a wide range of readers.

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The following excerpt from the book hidden influence. What invisible forces govern our actions (Yona Berger) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Chapter 1

What could be easier than finding two lines of the same length?

Imagine that you were asked to participate in a simple visual test. You have two cards in front of you. The left card shows one line. On the right - three lines of different lengths under the letters A, B and C.

Your task is simple: on the right card you need to find a line of the same length as the control line on the left. Determine which of the lines - A, B or C - is identical to the line shown on the left card. Nothing complicated, right?

Now let's add a new condition. Imagine that you are not doing this task alone, but together with a group of other test participants.

You arrive at an unremarkable building on campus and climb the stairs to room B7. Six people are already seated on three sides of the square table. You take the last empty chair and take your seat.

The leader of the experiment gives instructions. He reminds that on the right card you need to find a line that is as similar as possible to the control line from the left card. Participants will complete several attempts similar to the one described above. Since the group is small and the number of attempts is relatively small, he will ask each participant in turn to voice his answer, which he will then enter on a special form.

The host turns to one of the people sitting on the left and asks him to answer first. The first participant is a red-haired guy of about twenty-five in a gray shirt. He looks at the same lines as you saw on the previous page, and without hesitation gives his answer: “Line B”. The next member looks a bit older, appears to be in his mid-twenties and is less formally dressed. But he gives the same answer: Line B. The third person also chooses line B, as well as the fourth and fifth, after which it is your turn.

"What is your answer?" the host asks. Which line would you choose?

When psychologist Solomon Asch came up with this test in 1951, he wasn't just testing participants' eyesight. He wanted to refute something.

A few years earlier, another psychologist, Muzafer Sherif, did a similar experiment and got an unexpected result. Sheriff was interested in the mechanism of formation of social norms: how a group of people agree on the same way of perceiving the world.

In search of an answer to this question, he placed the participants in the experiment in unusual circumstances. The light was turned off in the room, people were shown a small spot of light on one of the walls and asked them, without looking away, to look at this spot for as long as possible, and then report how far it had moved from the original point.

At the same time, the light source remained motionless, that is, the spot did not move anywhere at all.

But it seemed to the participants in the experiment that the spot shifted a little. Looking at a small point of light in a completely dark room is much more difficult than it seems. When the eyes stare into darkness for a long time, they get tired and move involuntarily, so that the point of light seems to move to the side, although it remains motionless.

For his experiment, Sheriff chose this particular phenomenon—it's called the autokinetic effect—because he wanted to test how much people would rely on the opinions of others in a situation of uncertainty.

At first, the participants of the experiment entered the room one at a time. Each individually estimated the distance by which, in his opinion, the spot of light was displaced. Someone called five centimeters, someone - fifteen. The range of responses was significant.

Sheriff then grouped the same members into groups.

Now there were two or three people in the room at once, and each estimated the distance by which the spot of light had shifted so that the rest could hear it.

The participants in the experiment did not have to agree on anything, they could give completely different answers. But as soon as they were in the same room, a discordant chorus of conflicting assumptions sounded almost in one voice. In the presence of others, people began to adjust their assumptions to the assumptions of others. Passing the test one by one, one participant could name five centimeters, and the other fifteen. But when they were put together, they quickly came to a common assessment. The first increased the estimated distance from five to eight centimeters, and the second reduced it from fifteen to ten centimeters.

People adjusted their assumptions to the opinions of others.

The participants showed a tendency towards conformity without even realizing it. When the Sheriff asked people if their answer was influenced by other participants' assumptions, the majority answered in the negative.

The social influence was so strong that its effect persisted even when it was again necessary to estimate the distance one by one. After the group stage of the experiment, the participants were again divided, and they had to give answers without hearing the opinions of others. But people continued to call the same options as in the group stage, even though the group was no longer there. Those who chose a higher value in the presence of other participants in the experiment (say, changing their estimate from five to ten centimeters) tended to the higher value again, even when no one else was around.

The group's influence continued.

Sheriff's results have been inconsistent. Do people just do what everyone else does? Are we mindless robots, repeating every action of others? But what about the independence of the individual, freedom of thought and will?

But Solomon Ash was not convinced by the Sheriff's findings.

According to Asch, the conformity was provoked by the situation created by the Sheriff. Guessing how far the spot of light has shifted is not the same as choosing between Coke and Pepsi, or between butter and cream cheese on a bun. They had never made this kind of assumption before. Moreover, the correct answer was far from obvious. The question was very difficult.

In short, the situation was full of uncertainties. And when a person is not sure, he thinks it makes sense to rely on others. The opinion of others provides useful information. And if you are not confident in your knowledge, then why not take this information into account? When we do not know what to do, it is most reasonable to listen to other people's opinions and change our own based on them.

To establish whether the conformity was due to the uncertainty of the correct answer, Asch designed another experiment. He decided to check how people will behave when the correct answer is obvious, when they can immediately and themselves, without relying on the opinions of others, give the correct answer.

In this regard, the line test was perfect. Even people with not very good eyesight would be able to choose the right option. They might have had to squint a little, but they would still have identified the lines of the same length unerringly. There was no need to rely on anyone.

Asch was sure that the evidence of the correct answer would dampen the tendency toward conformity. Significantly weaken. To make the test more effective, he adjusted the responses of the group members.

One of the participants has always been real, but the rest - "decoy ducks", actors. Each actor called a predetermined answer. Sometimes it was correct: two really identical lines were called. And sometimes all the actors gave the same wrong answer, for example, they chose line B, although line C was clearly the correct answer.

The test was organized in such a way as to minimize conformity. The real participant saw the correct answer in front of him, so the fact that others answered incorrectly should not have mattered. People had to act on their own and rely on what they see. Maybe a couple of participants could hesitate, but basically people had to answer correctly.

That did not happen. Even close.

Conformity flourished. About 75 percent of the participants agreed with the group's opinion at least once. And while most people didn't adjust to the group each time, on average they did so about a third of the time.

Even when their own eyes told people the correct answer, they agreed with the group. Although they could not help but understand that the group was wrong.

Solomon Ash was wrong, but the Sheriff was right. Even when the answer is obvious, people still agree with the majority.

The power of conformity

Imagine a hot day. Very hot. So sultry that even the birds don't sing. Exhausted from thirst, you go to the nearest diner for a refreshing drink. You walk up to the counter and the cashier asks what to offer you.

What word would you use if you wanted to ask for a sweet soda? What would you say to the cashier? How would you complete the following sentence: "Please give me _______"?

The answer to this question largely depends on where a person grew up. A resident of New York, Philadelphia, or another city in the northeastern United States would ask for a soda, a native of Minnesota, the Midwest, or the Great Plains region would ask for a fizzy drink, and those of Atlanta, New Orleans, and most of the southern US region would ask for coca, even if they had mind sprite (for fun, try asking for "coke" when you happen to visit the southern United States. The cashier will first specify which one, and then you can choose a sprite, Dr. Pepper, root beer or regular Coke.).

The place where we grow up and the social environment with its norms and habits influence everything from our speech to behavior. Children adopt the religious views of their parents, and students adopt the learning style of their dorm neighbors. From simple decisions like which brand to buy to more important ones like choosing a career, we tend to do what others do.

The tendency to imitate is so fundamental and essential to survival that even animals have it.

Vervet monkeys are small funny monkeys that live mainly in South Africa. They are about the size of a small dog, light blue in color, with a black muzzle and white fringe on the chest and belly. They live in groups of ten to seventy individuals. Males, upon reaching puberty, leave their native flock and subsequently move from group to group.

Scientists often use vervet in research and experimentation because of their ability to survive certain human conditions such as hypertension, anxiety, and even alcoholism. Like humans, they do not drink alcohol in the morning, but monkeys suffering from alcoholism begin to drink right in the morning, and some can drink themselves unconscious.

In one curious experiment, researchers trained vervet monkeys to avoid certain foods. The monkeys were given two trays of corn: blue grains were poured into one, red grains into the other. For one group of monkeys, scientists soaked red corn in a bitter, unpleasant-tasting liquid. The second group, on the other hand, received normal red and soaked blue corn.

Gradually, the monkeys figured out which grains are tasteless. The first group began to bypass the red corn stall, the second - the blue one. This is how local norms were formed.

But the scientists didn't just want to educate the monkeys; they were interested in the question of social influence. How will new, untrained individuals behave in the group?

To test this, the scientists removed trays of colored corn for a few months before newborn monkeys appeared. Then trays with colored corn were again placed in front of the monkeys. But this time, the grains were not soaked in anything: both blue and red were edible.

What will newborn babies choose?

The red and blue grains tasted the same, so the babies had to eat from both trays. But they didn't. Despite the fact that they were not yet in the world at a time when the grains of one of the flowers had an unpleasant taste, the kids imitated other members of their group. If their mothers didn't eat the blue grains, the babies did the same. Some cubs even sat on a tray with "inedible" grains to eat from another, not perceiving them as potential food.

The tendency to adapt turned out to be so pronounced that when they moved to another group, the monkeys also changed their eating behavior. Some older males during the experiment left their groups and moved to others. As a result, those who previously avoided red corn began to eat it, and vice versa. The settlers adopted local norms and began to prefer grains of the color traditionally eaten by members of their new group.

A person from birth calls a sweet carbonated drink soda, but as soon as he moves to another region of the country, his speech changes. After a few years of dealing with people who call fizzy drink fizz, he begins to do the same. The monkey sees, the monkey does.

Why do people adapt

A few years ago I flew on a business trip to San Francisco. Those who have been to the San Francisco Bay Area know that the weather there is extremely unstable. In general, summers are not very hot and winters are not very cold. But on any given day, it is difficult to predict what to expect from the weather. There can be +20 in November and +10 in July. There is even a famous joke about this city, usually (albeit erroneously) attributed to Mark Twain: "I spent the warmest winter of my life in the summer in San Francisco."

I went to this city in November. Since I was flying from the East Coast, I took a warm winter jacket with me. But on my first morning in San Francisco, before going outside, I was faced with a dilemma: to wear a jacket or not? I looked at the weather forecast, according to which it should be +10 - +15 degrees outside, but this did not add certainty. It is still not clear whether it is warm outside or cold. How to decide?

Instead of guessing, I used the old tried and true method: I looked out the window and looked at what people were wearing on the street.

When we do not know what to do, we look at others. Imagine that you are looking for a place to park. You are driving around the area and suddenly you see a completely empty street. Luck! But the joy is soon replaced by doubts: “If no one has parked here, maybe I can’t either. Suddenly there is planned roadwork or some kind of event, and parking is prohibited.

However, if at least two other cars are standing by the side of the road, doubts disappear. Now you can confidently rejoice that you have found a legal free parking space.

Struggling to figure out what food to buy for your dog or which daycare to send your child to? Knowing what others have done will help you navigate. Talking to other dog owners of your breed will help you figure out which food is right for your pet based on their size and energy needs. By talking with other parents, you will find out which kindergartens have the optimal ratio of children and teachers, where games and learning are combined correctly.

Just as participants in an experiment relied on the help of others to decide how far a spot of light moved in a dark room, we often look to others for a useful source of information to make a better decision.

Using someone else's choice as a source of information allows us to save time and effort. We could buy a different food for our pet every week in search of the best one, or study the characteristics of each kindergarten in the area from morning to night, but thanks to other people, we find the shortest path to the optimal choice - a heuristic approach that simplifies the decision. If other people do something, choose, love, then it must be good.

But, as the experiment with lines shows, imitation is not only about information. Even when we know the correct answer, the behavior of others still influences us. And the reason for this is social pressure.

Imagine that you are going out to dinner at a nice restaurant with a few co-workers. The firm is doing well, and the boss invited everyone to a gala dinner. This is a restaurant with traditional American dishes, but cooked in a new way. The appetizers are excellent, the main courses are beyond praise, the whole company enjoys a wonderful evening with delicious drinks and heartfelt conversation.

Finally, it's time to order coffee and dessert. The restaurant is famous for its sweets. The signature lemon cake looks luxurious, but glazed chocolate cake looks no less appetizing. What a difficult choice! You decide to wait for others to order and then decide.

And suddenly something funny happens. Nobody but you wants dessert.

The first colleague refuses under the pretext that he is already full, the second colleague adheres to a diet and does not eat sweets. And so, in turn, one by one, all those sitting at the table reject the desserts offered by the waiter.

The waiter comes to you. "Dessert?" he asks.

The situation is very similar to the Asch test with lines of the same length. You know what you want—to order dessert, both chocolate cake and lemon tart—just like you knew which line was right. You can't say that the people around you are providing you with useful information to help you make a decision, but at the same time, you feel that you should also give up dessert.

Most people want to please others. We want to be accepted or at least not rejected - if not by everyone, then at least by those who care about us. Anyone who was last chosen for the basketball team or not included on the list of wedding invitees knows what an unpleasant feeling it is.

So it is with dessert. Of course, you could be the only one ordering a sweet treat. There are no laws against eating dessert alone. And yet you feel embarrassed to be the only one. Suddenly you will be considered an egoist or something else will think bad.

Therefore, in most of these situations, people adapt to those around them. They refuse dessert because everyone else has refused. They want to be part of the group.

In addition to information and social pressure, there is another reason why people conform to the majority.

Chameleons and the science of imitation

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see the face of another person in it.

As a rule, we are carriers of the traits of both parents: father's nose and mother's eyes; dad's lower jaw and mom's hair.

But when I look in the mirror—especially after a haircut—I see my brother. With a difference of only five years, we are very similar to each other. I have slightly lighter and curly hair, but in general we have the same features.

Genes undoubtedly play a huge role. If people have common parents, then they are genetically similar in many ways. Depending on what parental traits appear in the offspring, children can turn out to be practically twins.

But genetics is not the only reason for similarities between siblings, as spouses also often look alike. Although the husband and wife are not blood relatives, they often have almost identical faces. Compare married people with any randomly selected couple, and the spouses will be more similar to each other.

In part, this similarity is due to what is called "assortative crossing" in animals. As a rule, we are looking for a life partner among people of our age, nationality and race. Swedes marry Swedish women, girls in their twenties marry boys in their twenties, South Africans are looking for a mate in South Africa. As they say, suit to suit is selected.

Further, people usually like those who look like them. If you have an oval face or prominent cheekbones, then people with the same facial features will seem more attractive to you. Simply because you see such a face in the mirror more often.

All these factors push people to choose a partner who is at least a little like them.

But that's not all: over time, the similarity of partners increases. At the very beginning, they could only slightly resemble each other, but after many years of living together, they become similar, like brother and sister. It's like two faces merge into one. By the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, married people are more and more turning into the proverbial two drops of water.

And although this phenomenon could be attributed to age or general life circumstances, but even if these factors are excluded, married people are still more similar to each other than one might think.

In fact, less obvious processes are taking place. When we are happy, when we are sad, and when we experience any other emotions, our facial expression changes accordingly. We smile when we are happy, roll the corners of our mouth when we are sad, and frown when we are angry.

Facial expression in response to emotion is fleeting, but over the years of repetition, the same facial expression leaves its mark. Crow's feet - small wrinkles around the outer corners of the eyes - are often called laughter wrinkles, as they appear from the habit of smiling often. Imagine you are folding a piece of paper. The more often you repeat this operation, the deeper the folds will become.

But our emotions do not arise by themselves. We tend to copy the emotional state of others. If your friend laughs while telling a joke, you will probably laugh too. And if he tells a sad story, sadness will also be reflected on your face.

Emotional imitation is especially common among married couples. Spouses look at each other for a long time and share their emotions: they listen and sympathize when something happened at the husband’s work, when the wife did not have time to get to the store before closing, etc.

As a result, partners share not only food and shelter, but also emotions. They laugh together, grieve together and even get angry together. We joke a lot and we get a lot of wrinkles around our eyes, but our partners get the same wrinkles because they listen to these jokes. Over the years, the same facial expressions, occurring at the same time, leave small but similar marks on our faces. Imitation makes us outwardly similar to each other.

Chameleons are amazing creatures. Unlike most animals, their eyes move independently of each other, providing a nearly 360 degree view. The language of the chameleon is no less striking. Its length can be twice the length of the body, and at the moment of capturing prey, it can move at a speed of almost 25 kilometers per hour.

However, the most famous feature of chameleons is their ability to change color to blend in with their surroundings.

People also do something similar. We do not change skin color, but we copy facial expressions, gestures, actions and even the speech of others.

We smile when others smile, we wince at the sight of someone else's pain, and we use words and expressions characteristic of a particular region when talking with a resident of that region. If the person sitting next to us in a meeting touches their face or crosses their legs, there's a good chance we'll start making the same gestures. And we won't even realize we're doing it.

We begin to imitate almost from the moment of birth. A two-day-old baby begins to cry in response to the crying of another child and copies the expression on the face of the person who cares for him. If you show your tongue to a child, he will respond in kind.

In all cases, imitation occurs unconsciously. When we lean back in our chair after seeing someone else do the same, there is no intention in our actions; and we don't start specifically using dialect words just because our interlocutor uses them.

But even if unconsciously, we constantly and automatically copy the actions of the people around us. We subtly change body position and gestures to mirror the movements of our communication partners. And they do the same.

The neurological basis for this imitative tendency would not have been discovered were it not for the ice cream cone.

Sitting in its cage in the corner of a neuroscience lab one hot afternoon in the Italian city of Parma was a macaque monkey, waiting for the scientists to return from their lunch break. Microelectrodes were implanted into the monkey's brain, connected by wires to a huge apparatus that recorded the activity of its brain. The electrodes were concentrated in the premotor area of ​​the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the planning and initiation of movements, in particular, in the area associated with the movements of the forepaws and mouth.

Every time the monkey moved its front paws or its mouth, the corresponding brain cells were activated, and the monitor emitted a signal. When the monkey raised its paw, the monitor squealed: “Blip-blip!” When the monkey reached for food, the monitor beeped: "Blip-blip-blip!" The sound echoed through the lab.

So far, the experiment has proceeded as expected. The neurons in the premotor area fired each time the monkey made various movements. Each time the device emitted a loud "blip!" The scientists left it on and went out for lunch.

One of the graduate students returned to the lab with ice cream in hand. He held the waffle cone in front of him like a microphone.

The monkey sat in its cage and looked lustfully at the ice cream.

Then something unusual happened. When the graduate student raised the ice cream to his lips, the monitor responded. "Blip-blip!" he squeaked. If the monkey did not move, why did the areas of the brain responsible for planning and initiating movements become activated?

It turns out that the brain cells that fired when the monkey did something also fired when it saw someone else doing the same thing.

When a monkey saw a graduate student raise an ice cream waffle cone to his lips, his brain reacted in the same way as when he himself raised his paw to his mouth. Additional tests were carried out, and the result was confirmed: when the monkey took the banana herself and when she watched someone else take the banana, her brain reacted in the same way.

The same neurons fired even under the influence of sounds: when the monkey itself cracked the shell of a peanut and when he heard the sound of cracking the shell. Observing someone else's action caused the monkey's brain to imitate the same action. Thus, Italian scientists discovered the so-called mirror neurons.

Later, other scientists found that humans also have mirror neurons. Watching someone else's action excites the same area of ​​our cerebral cortex as if we were performing the action ourselves. You watch someone pick up an object, and your motor potential, that is, the signal that a certain muscle is ready to move, is similar to the electrical reaction of the brain with its own intention to take this object.

It follows that other people can push us into certain behaviors. Observing other people's body movements prepares our brain to perform the same actions. Did any of the meeting participants straighten their back? Someone took a candy from a vase? Through the influence of these actions on our brain, we can do the same. Our brains and muscles are designed to imitate.

The fact that our brains are designed to mimic is interesting in itself, but behavioral mimicry also has important implications. Yes, we imitate those around us, but what happens when they imitate us?

Jake hated negotiations. To such an extent that he was ready to pay the full cost of the car, just not to bargain. From participating in bidding at an online auction, he had a panic attack. Whether he was dealing with the pay requirements of employees at a previous job or discussing the details of a supply contract, he always preferred to avoid negotiations. He always associated this form of communication with coercion, confrontation, and argument.

And then one late evening he found himself embroiled in very difficult negotiations about - just think! - petrol station.

Jake got the part of a gas station owner in a negotiation exercise as part of an MBA course. His goal was to sell the station at a bargain price to Susan, another student on the course.

For the past five years, the station owner and his wife have been working eighteen-hour days to save money for their lifelong dream of sailing around the world. The couple were going to sail from Los Angeles and visit dozens of places that they read about in books within two years. They have already paid the first part of the amount for a beautiful second-hand yacht and have begun to prepare it for the trip.

The station was the only obstacle. The couple needed money for travel expenses, so it had to be sold. Jake, acting as the owner of the gas station, tried to get rid of her as soon as possible. It was necessary to sell it quickly, but not cheaper than a certain amount, otherwise there would not be enough money for the trip.

Susan sat opposite.

She got the role of a representative of the large oil refinery Texoil, which is interested in buying this station. The company pursued a strategic expansion program and acquired private gas stations such as Jake's.

Jake began negotiations by listing the advantages of his station. She had few competitors, she would be an excellent investment. In addition, real estate prices have risen over the past ten years, and it would cost Texoil much more to build a new station from scratch.

Susan praised Jake for his progress in developing the station, but cited the fact that the company would have to invest heavily in modernizing it as a counterargument. You'll need new speakers and a whole new maintenance area. She said that Texoil could offer a very limited amount for the plant.

As is often the case in negotiations, both sides focused on beneficial facts. They started with why the price should move in their favor and did not disclose information that could weaken their position.

Finally, they moved on to discussing the price.

Susan offered $410,000. Jake politely declined the offer and went back to his $650,000. Susan gave in a little. In response, Jake also reduced the amount.

Half an hour later, they still hadn't come to an agreement.

Such negotiation exercises are designed to teach people to negotiate. Playing out a real bargaining situation, they gain valuable experience: assessing the opponent's position, deciding how much personal information to disclose, learning how to make deals.

But these negotiations at first glance seemed like someone's cruel joke. There was no obvious zone of possible agreement.

In negotiation theory, the zone of possible agreement is the range of outcomes in which it would be more profitable for both the buyer and the seller to conclude a deal than to refuse it. If you are willing to sell your home for anything above a million dollars, and the buyer is willing to buy it for no more than $1.2 million, then there is a reasonable range for a possible deal: $200,000. Any amount between 1 million and 1.2 million dollars - and you will agree.

Of course, each of you would like to get as much of this difference as possible. As a seller, you would prefer to make a deal for the desired $1.2 million. With an extra $200,000, you could buy a new car, send your kids to college, or buy the velvet portrait of Elvis Presley you've always dreamed of. The buyer, in turn, of course, would like to pay a million. He'd rather keep the extra $200,000 for himself and hang that picture of Elvis in his living room. But no matter how much of the difference each of you ended up with, you would both prefer to make a deal within that amount than to part ways without an agreement.

In other cases, the zone of possible agreement is much smaller. If you want to get at least a million dollars for your home, and the buyer is willing to pay no more than a million, then there is practically no room for bargaining. The buyer can name any amount at his discretion. He can offer $800k, $900k, or even $999k. But if it doesn't reach its maximum amount, you won't reach an agreement. Elvis will not get any of you.

Thus, the smaller the area of ​​possible agreement, the more difficult the negotiations. When the area is large enough, both sides can be arbitrarily stealthy. You can start in the most profitable position for you and still have a good chance of making a deal. But shrink this zone and reaching an agreement will become much more difficult. Each side must be prepared to make further concessions. As a result, an agreement is often not reached.

Negotiations with Texoil were an even more difficult case. At first glance, the positions of the parties did not intersect at all. The maximum Susan could offer on behalf of her employer was less than what Jake was willing to accept. Both sides could make maximum concessions and still not agree. There seemed to be no chance. Waste of time.

Luckily, the task in this exercise was tricky.

Although the parties did not agree on the amount of the transaction, their fundamental interests were similar. To be sure, Texoil wanted to buy the station, but it also needed a good manager to run it in the future. And the salesman, who had successfully run his gas station for the past five years, wanted to get rid of it, but also needed a permanent job after returning from a trip around the world. Hope remained.

If both parties realized the commonality of their interests and applied a non-standard approach to organizing a deal, they could agree. But they would have to look beyond the immediate cost of the plant and explore other aspects of the situation. The buyer could offer the maximum amount for himself for the station, but also guarantee a permanent position of manager, so that the owner of the station would receive the necessary funds to cover the costs of the trip and know that there would be work waiting for him when he returned.

An agreement was possible. But for this, the parties had to trust each other enough to disclose personal information. The manager in the person of Jake had to tell that he was selling the station in order to go on a trip. And the representative of Texoil represented by Susan had to tell that the company needs a competent manager. The seller had to trust the buyer, and vice versa.

But trust is the last thing that most people experience in negotiations that do not involve further cooperation. Each side is focused on extracting the maximum benefit and seeks not to give out information about their interests. Telling about the vacation would weaken Jake's position in the auction, so in his place, people prefer to keep such information to themselves.

How could Susan win Jake's trust? What could she do to win him over and get him to reveal this valuable personal information?

It turns out that a simple trick allows negotiators like Jake and Susan to increase the effectiveness of such transactions by five times. They are five times more likely to reach an agreement, even when the situation seems hopeless.

What's the trick?

Imitation of your negotiating partner.

The scientists decided to find out whether imitation can help the buyer win the trust of the seller. They asked pairs of participants in the experiment, like Jake and Susan, to do the same negotiation. But in half the cases, they asked the buyer to discreetly copy the mannerisms of his opponent. If the seller rubbed his face, the buyer did the same. If the seller leaned back on the back of his chair or, conversely, leaned forward, the buyer repeated his gestures. Not explicitly, but imperceptibly to the interlocutor.

Nonsense, you say. Why should the fact that someone rubbed his face or leaned back in his chair affect the outcome of the negotiations?

But he did. People who imitated their opponent were five times more likely to close successful deals. Of those who did not copy, almost no one came to an agreement, while negotiators, quietly mimicking the movements of their opponents, made deals two times out of three.

Imitation facilitates social interaction by helping to establish contact. Like social glue, imitation binds us together. When a person's behavior coincides with ours, we stop seeing him as an adversary and focus on what unites us. We feel a great closeness and interconnectedness. And we don't even realize it.

If a person behaves like us, we assume that we have something in common with him or belong to the same circle. This may partly be explained by the association between similarity and kinship. Since we tend to imitate those around us, another person's behavior that is similar to ours can serve as an unconscious signal that we are connected in some way. If a person has the same accent or is a fan of the same brand, we feel closeness, similarity. This connection, in turn, contributes to the emergence of sympathy and facilitates communication.

Thus, imitation has all sorts of interpersonal consequences. In the course of speed dating, conducted as part of the same experiment, interlocutors with similar speech characteristics were three times more likely to show interest in a new meeting with each other. Among existing couples in the same experiment, people with similar communication patterns were 50 percent more likely to continue dating after three months.

Imitation also contributes to success in business. In negotiations, it not only helped close deals, but also allowed negotiators to add value and capture more of it. During interviews, job seekers who imitated the interviewer's mannerisms felt more confident and answered questions better. And in retail, imitation increased the persuasiveness of the salesperson.

In fact, the only time we don't imitate others is when we don't want to have anything to do with them. For example, people who are happy in their current romantic relationship were less likely to imitate attractive members of the opposite sex. Only by not wanting to establish a connection with someone, we retreat from this innate tendency.

It is now clear that people often repeat after others. But can this tendency to imitate contribute to the growth of popularity?

How imitation is linked to box office hits

At first we see only the foot slowly tapping on the aluminum leg of the school desk. Then a pencil drumming on a textbook. Finally, the bored face of a girl resting her chin in her palm. She is waiting for something. Looks at the clock.

The hand slowly counts the seconds: 57, 58… Each click merges with the tap of a pencil on the cover of a textbook. The camera pans to the students, who are also focused on the clock face. When will the lesson end? Even the teacher is unbearable.

And then the bell rings - the end of the painful expectation. The students grab their backpacks, jump up from their seats and run to the classroom door.

Four quick strokes of the drumstick and it started. “Oh baby, baby…” a hoarse voice intones. Boom-boom-boom-boom-to the beat of the music. "Oh baby, baby..."

The camera is focused on a teenage girl with straw-colored hair in high pigtails with pink bows at the ends. She is dressed as a student at a Catholic school, but the uniform is more like a Halloween costume. An ironed white blouse tied under the bust, a short black skirt and high black stockings. She smoothly moves her hips, the corridor is filled with schoolchildren, and the girl and her friends begin to dance to the music.

“Oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know…?”

So in the early autumn of 1998, the world met Britney Jean Spears.

The song "...Baby One More Time" was not only an occasion for acquaintance. It was a huge hit. The single broke sales records worldwide and was named one of the best-selling singles in history. The video for this song was named the best of the decade by Billboard magazine; it was voted third on the list of the most influential music videos in the history of pop music. Britney Spears' self-titled album went platinum fourteen times in the US and sold over 300 million copies worldwide. It is the best-selling album by a teenage solo artist and one of the best-selling albums in history.

Whatever one may say, a good start to a career.

But "...Baby One More Time" was only a precursor to further success. Britney Spears' second album, Oops!.. I Did It Again, became the fastest-selling album by a female artist in history. Her third album debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200.

Whether you like her music or not, Britney Spears is one of the most celebrated pop icons of the first decade of the 21st century. In addition to the Grammys, she has received nine Billboard music awards, six MTV Video Music Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The tour around the country and the world brought in over 400 million dollars. Britney Spears is the only artist in history to have both a single and an album top the charts in each of the three decades of her career.

Very good.

But let's go back to basics for a second. Before the tour, before the millions of albums sold, before her personal life went downhill (remember Kevin Federline?). Even before we heard "...Baby One More Time".

Imagine for a second that you can turn back time and start all over again.

Would Britney Spears become popular? Could the pop princess hit the bull's-eye again?

It's hard to argue with success. After all, Britney Spears was not a one-hit wonder. With 100 million albums sold, she is one of the "best selling" music artists in history. There must be something in it that made it so successful, right?

Britney had all the makings of a future star. She started dancing at the age of three. She won talent competitions and appeared in commercials at an age when most of us mastered the basics of arithmetic. She even appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club, a launching pad for many young stars that launched the careers of Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera, among others. How can you not succeed with such and such a pedigree?

When we look at superstars like Britney Spears, we assume that they really stand out from the crowd. That they have some natural talent or innate quality that leads them straight to success.

If you ask music experts to explain the resounding success of Britney Spears, they would say something similar. That Britney's voice has a unique sound. She may not be the greatest singer in history, but she did have some advantage. The combination of modern choreography, innocence and sex appeal made her the perfect pop singer. Thanks to these qualities, Britney became a megastar. If you were to rewrite history, the same qualities would still allow her to succeed.

Britney's success was inevitable.

We make the same assumptions about popular films, books, and other box office hits. Why did the Harry Potter books sell over 450 million copies? They must be excellent. “This book has all the makings of a classic literary work,” some newspapers reported. “We are naturally receptive to intriguing stories,” wrote others. Books with this level of sales simply have to be better than competitors. More interesting. Better written. More exciting.

But maybe the successes of these box office hits are more random than we think?

If artists like Britney Spears are better than others in some way, it should be obvious to an expert. Of course, her music may not be the best from a technical point of view, but perhaps Britney's voice has the perfect sound for its genre. Let the critics do not favor her, but hitmakers always recognize the sensation. Leading industry players should have predicted in advance that she would become a superstar.

The same goes for Harry Potter. This is not Chaucer, but when J.K. Rowling came with the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to publishers in the mid-1990s, they had to compete for the right to publish this book. Just as an oenophile distinguishes a good cabernet from an excellent one, so a person who has devoted ten years to the publishing business must be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Maybe ordinary readers would not be able to immediately recognize the future bestseller, but experts certainly should.

And yet they didn't.

The first twelve publishers rejected Rowling's original manuscript. According to them, it was too long. You don't make much money from children's books. “Don’t quit your main job,” they advised the aspiring writer.

And it wasn't just with J.K. Rowling. Gone with the Wind was published after thirty-eight rejections. Elvis was advised to get back behind the wheel of the truck. Walt Disney was fired as a young man for "lack of imagination and lack of interesting ideas."

Harry Potter was published almost by accident. The situation got off the ground only when one of the publishers gave his daughter's manuscript to read. The girl buzzed into her father's ear for months about what a wonderful book it was, until he made a commercial offer to Rowling. And thus turned her into a multimillionaire.

If hits have inherent qualities that distinguish them from losers, then their fate must be predictable. Maybe not for you, not for me, but at least for industry experts. For people whose job it is to separate the good from the bad.

But how to understand the fact that even experts do not always predict success?

This question tormented the Princeton sociologist Matthew Salganik, who was working on his dissertation. Books, songs, and films that become hits are so much more successful than their competitors that we tend to think of them as being qualitatively different from everything else.

But if the best are clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, why can't experts always see them? Why did so many publishers miss the opportunity to sign J.K. Rowling?

To find out, Salganik and his colleagues organized a simple experiment. They developed a website where people could listen to music and download it for free. No famous songs or famous bands - only obscure compositions of unknown artists. Local up-and-coming musicians or bands who have just recorded their first "demo". Groups with names like Go Mordecai, Shipwreck Union, 52 Metro.

The songs went down the list one after another. Site visitors could choose any, listen and download if they liked. Each listener was given a list in random order so that each song would receive an equal amount of attention. More than fourteen thousand people took part in the experiment.

In addition to the names of artists and songs, one group of listeners could see which songs had been liked by previous users. Next to each song was indicated how many people downloaded it. For example, if the song Lockdown by 52 Metro was downloaded 150 times, then the number 150 would appear next to it.

Like any bestseller list, the songs for the participants in the experiment from this group were sorted by popularity. The most downloaded song was first on the list, the second most downloaded was second, and so on. The number of downloads and the song's position on the list were updated automatically as soon as someone downloaded it. Salganik then studied which songs were downloaded the most.

Having information about the choices of other site users had a huge impact on the results. People suddenly began to imitate each other. As in the experiment with a spot of light on the wall in a dark room, people listened to and downloaded the songs that previous site visitors liked.

The circle of popular compositions has narrowed. The gap between the most and least popular songs has widened. Interest in the former increased even more, and the latter began to receive even less attention. The songs were the same, but social influence increased the success of the best and increased the failure of the worst.

But Salganik did not stop there. He was interested in checking how people's tendency to imitate each other affects popularity, but the original riddle was not solved. Of course, certain songs or books can become more popular than others, but why couldn't the experts, armed with the results of market research, predict this success in advance?

To answer this question, Salganik added one more detail to his experiment.

You can't change the past. You can't stop time, go back and see what happens if you start all over again. So instead of restarting the existing world, Salganik created eight new ones. Eight separate worlds, or independent groups, that looked the same, at least at first.

This decision became the key to unraveling.

A scientific experiment is good because it can be controlled. In this case, all eight groups started with the same conditions. Everyone had access to the same information. All songs originally had the same number of downloads - none. Since the participants in the experiment were randomly distributed into groups, their composition was also approximately the same. Someone liked punk, someone liked rap, but on average, each group had the same number of participants with one or another musical taste. Thus, these "worlds" in all respects began in the same conditions.

However, they developed independently of each other, as if eight different versions of the planet Earth separately rotated side by side.

If success depended only on quality, then the end result in all groups should have been the same. The best songs were to be the most popular, the worst the least popular, and the songs that were popular in one group were to be popular in all. If 52 Metro's "Lockdown" was the most downloaded song in one world, it would have to be close to the top of the list in the rest. On average, preferences in all groups should be the same.

But that did not happen.

The popularity of the songs varied considerably from group to group. In one of the most popular was Lockdown artist 52 Metro. In the other, the same composition is located at the very end of the list - the fortieth out of forty-eight, almost the last place in terms of the number of downloads.

The same song, roughly the same lineup of members in the groups, but a completely different level of success. Same prerequisites, but different end results.

Why such inconsistency in popularity?

The reason is social influence. In the world where this song became the most popular, there were no more punk fans than in the group where it was not successful. But because people tend to follow those who came before them, the slight difference from start to finish has snowballed.

To understand why this phenomenon occurs, imagine parking at a county farmers' fair. There is no parking with markings as such, no one regulates traffic. Just a big empty field where people leave their cars. By and large, they don't care where to park; they just want to eat cotton candy and ride a ferris wheel. There are no markings indicating parking spaces, so the first driver to enter the field can park the car where he pleases.

The first visitors were a family from the West. They would like to be facing west - not essential, but still - so they drive in, turn right and park the car with the hood facing west.

Then the second family arrives. These people are from the South, so they would rather have the car facing south than west. But their desire is not so strong, so, given that the first car is parked with the hood facing west, they also turn right after entering and become parallel.

Soon other cars appear. Drivers and passengers may have their own preferences, but they imitate those who arrived earlier until the parking lot is filled as follows:

This is logical.

But what if instead of a family from the West, a family from the South was the first to arrive in the parking lot? What if the southerners were the first to put their car in accordance with personal preferences?

Given their desire to park facing south, they would drive straight ahead and stand like this:

Next comes a family from the West. They would rather face west, but since the car that arrived earlier is facing south, they drive ahead and do the same. The rest of the visitors imitate the first ones, and after a while the parking takes on the following form:

Same eight cars, same parking preferences, but a completely different result. Everyone is facing south, not west - and only because of the preferences of the one who arrived in the parking lot first.

In the same way, the final result of the musical experiment was formed. Take two of the eight groups at the beginning of the experiment. They are basically the same. None of the songs have been uploaded yet. Even the participants are on average the same.

However, like families from the West and from the South, individuals in these groups may have slightly different preferences. One likes punk a little more than rap, the other - on the contrary.

And the order in which these two people express their preferences also differs. In one group, the one who prefers punk chooses the song first. He listens to a few songs, finds a song he likes and downloads it. A punk song scores one point, a rap song scores zero. Then the second listener appears and is guided by the choice of the first. A punk song has more downloads, so it gets more attention. The second listener is a little more sympathetic to rap, but he also likes punk and the song seems good, so he downloads it. Punk - 2, rap - 0.

In the second group, the first listener is a rap lover. The process develops according to the same scenario, but with a different result. A person listens to several songs, selects a rap song that he likes and downloads it. Not because he doesn't like punk, but because he prefers rap a little more. Punk - 0, rap - 1. Then a punk fan appears, but this time he is second. So instead of acting according to personal preference, he succumbs to the influence and also downloads a rap song. Punk - 0, rap - 2.

Soon, two initially identical groups of experiment participants begin to differ slightly from each other. One list is topped by a punk song, the other by a rap song.

One person's liking for a particular song is not enough to completely change someone's preferences. But enough to tip the scales. Songs at the top of the list received more attention, were listened to more often, and downloaded more often as a result. This made it more likely that the punk song would be downloaded again in the first group, and the rap song in the second. With the next listener, the process was repeated.

Slowly but surely, as in the case of the parking lot at the county fair, social influence pulled originally identical groups in different directions. Considering that hundreds of thousands of people participated in the experiment, the difference in the final results turned out to be significant, but the starting conditions were the same.

The implications are both simple and striking. This means that a musical, literary or other work sometimes becomes a hit, not so much due to its quality, but due to luck and herd instinct. If you start over, Britney Spears (and J.K. Rowling, for that matter) might not be popular. Her video was released on time, someone liked it, and others followed it. But she's probably no better than other aspiring musicians we've never heard of.

Does this mean that anything can be a hit? That terrible books and movies are just as likely to catch on as good ones?

Not really. Even in Salganik's experiment, quality correlated with success. The "best" songs—those that were downloaded more often in the independent control group—were more popular in the experimental groups, while the "worst" songs were less popular. The highest-quality compositions never ended up at the bottom of the list, and the lowest-quality compositions were nowhere particularly popular.

But the scatter of results was still large. And this suggests that one quality is not always enough.

Thousands of books, films and songs vie for public attention. None of us have enough time to read every cover or listen to every demo. Most people don't have the physical ability to get to know even a small percentage of all options.

Therefore, we use someone else's choice to save our own time and effort - as a kind of filter. If the book is on the bestseller list, then we are more likely to skim the abstract. If the song is already popular, we are more willing to listen to it. Imitating others saves us time and effort by leading us (if we're lucky) to things we're more likely to enjoy.

Does this mean that we ourselves will like all those books and songs? Not necessary. But we are more likely to pay attention to them. And with thousands of competing applicants, our increased attention is enough to give them a shot at success.

In addition, knowing that this or that object of our attention was liked by others, if there is any doubt, we will incline in his favor. The appearance on the bestseller list gives the object credibility: if so many people bought it, then it must be good.

JK Rowling inadvertently tested the validity of these hypotheses when she released the book under a pseudonym. After the success of Harry Potter, Rowling decided to write a detective novel called The Cuckoo Calling. If the first Potter novel brought Rowling fame, then the following books in the series were criticized by reviewers, and Rowling was worried that because of her fame, the new work might be perceived biased. She wanted the novel to speak for itself. So for The Call of the Cuckoo, Joan took the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, from Robert F. Kennedy and Ella Galbraith (a name she made up as a child).

Robert Galbraith's novel was a mixed success. Almost all readers liked it. It was called "permeated with mystery" and "addictive".

But, unfortunately, there were not too many readers - mostly people who chose the novel by pure chance. The Call of the Cuckoo was released without fanfare and sold only 1,500 hardcover copies in its first three months of sales.

Then one day the book soared from 4709 in the Amazon rankings to bestseller status. Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold in record time.

Did the readers see the genius of Robert Galbraith? No. Perhaps a careful study of the style and manner of writing The Call of the Cuckoo revealed in it a literary masterpiece? Also no.

Without a last name, J.K. Rowling's The Cuckoo's Call was nothing more than one of thousands of well-written detective stories vying for readers' attention. And with Rowling's name, he received a 450 million seal of approval that couldn't help but make potential readers take notice. Can millions of people be wrong?

Practical application of social influence

These findings about the human tendency to imitate have a number of important practical implications.

When trying to force or convince someone to do something, we usually resort to the method of reward or punishment. The best employee of the month receives a $100 bonus and a place on the honor roll. Children are told to eat their vegetables or they won't get ice cream for dessert.

But if rewards and punishments are effective in the short term, they often undermine the main goal.

Imagine that you are stuck on another planet, and only two dishes are served there for lunch: zagvarts and galblats. You've never heard of them and both look a little weird, but you're starving and you have to eat something.

Before you can make your choice, the owner of the house informs you that before you can get zagvarts, you must eat galblats.

Which of the two dishes do you think is tastier: zagvarts or galblats?

Children make similar judgments about ice cream and vegetables. The reward in the form of ice cream in advance causes a negative attitude towards vegetables, although they can be quite tasty. But children think something like this: if vegetables are tasty, then why are they offering a reward for eating them?

The promise of a reward - ice cream - implies that vegetables themselves are not worthy of attention and children should be rewarded for eating this dish. When parents stop rewarding, children will stop eating. At any opportunity for self-selection of a dish, vegetables will be pushed aside. The same applies to employees. They begin to think that the only reason to come to work on time and diligently fulfill their obligations is a bonus, not love for work.

Using social influence more effectively. Like monkeys with red and blue corn, people imitate the choices and behaviors of others. If parents are happy to eat broccoli, children will follow suit.

Unfortunately, many parents themselves make it clear to children that vegetables are not tasty. They put just a few vegetables on their plate and eat chicken, steak, or whatever comes first. And if parents don't eat vegetables, why on earth would children want to?

But if the parents themselves eat the broccoli first, then the children will repeat after them. Better yet, have a joking argument about which parent will eat the last bite. The more often children see their parents eating a particular food - and with pleasure - the higher the chances that they will imitate them.

Copying is also a useful tool.

Imagine that on a sunny spring day you went to lunch at a cafe with a few colleagues. You found a table outside, looked at the menu, and decided you wanted to order.

The waiter comes up, asks about the order, and you start listing:

– A medium-sized hamburger with bacon and cheese and a salad.

“I see,” he replies, “a medium sized bacon and cheese hamburger and a salad, right?”

“Yes,” you happily answer. My stomach is already rumbling in anticipation.

Did you notice what happened? Probably not.

Meanwhile, this happens to each of us dozens, if not hundreds of times every day. The waiter didn't just take your order, he copied you. He could just say "okay" or "coming soon". But he didn't. The waiter repeated your phrase word for word.

Trivially? May be.

But studies show that this technique increases the waiter's tip by 70 percent.

Whether you want to get a contract, get someone to do something, or just win sympathy, the easiest way to start is by discreetly copying the speech and mannerisms of the interlocutor. Even something as small as mimicking a greeting style (such as "hello," "good afternoon," or "hello") in email makes it easier to connect.

By understanding why people imitate, we can learn to be less susceptible to the influence of others.

Decisions made by a group of people often suffer from the so-called groupthink: conformity and the desire for intra-group agreement cause the team to make poorer decisions. Watch how a focus group exchanges, or how a commission decides who to hire: the first person to speak has a huge impact on the outcome. In the same way that songs become popular because of the preferences of the first listeners, the direction of the discussion or vote depends on the opinion of the one who first voices his opinion. Doubting group members tend to conform to the majority and usually keep their doubts to themselves - unless someone has a strong objection. The group calmly chooses one solution, although it could just as easily choose another. Groupthink has been blamed for everything from the crash of the Space Shuttle Challenger to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

People talk about collective intelligence, but collective decisions are only wise when each member of the group has access to each member's individual information. Putting all the pieces together, you can find a better solution than one person could. But if everyone only imitates each other or keeps their knowledge to themselves, the value of the group is lost.

Therefore, it is very important to ensure that everyone shares their unique information. How to extract alternative opinions from people?

It turns out that just one dissent is enough. The correct answer of at least one of the "decoy" participants in Asch's experiment with lines would be enough for a real participant to also answer correctly, despite the opinion of the majority. He didn't need the support of half the group, just one more dissent. We do not need to belong to the majority in order to freely express our opinion. The main thing is not to be the only one.

Interestingly, another alternative opinion does not have to coincide with ours. It was enough for at least one of the decoys to give an answer that did not coincide with the opinion of the majority (line A, not line B) for the real participant to answer correctly (line C). Another dissent, even if his opinion did not correspond to their personal one, gave people confidence and allowed them to voice their own answer.

That dissenter changed the nature of the discussion. Now the real participant did not have to go against the group, did not have to choose between "I" and "them". The correct answer became a matter of personal opinion. When a person sees that everyone has different opinions, it is much easier and more comfortable for him to express his own.

To encourage alternative opinions, some leaders specifically assign one person to constantly voice disagreement. This encourages not only those who share this disagreement to speak out, but also those who have other alternative opinions.

Privacy is also of the utmost importance. The metaphor "the monkey sees - the monkey does" perfectly captures the essence of imitation, but you should pay special attention to the part where "the monkey sees." If a person cannot observe what others are doing, then others cannot influence him. If one monkey had never seen other monkeys eat red or blue corn, their choice might not have influenced its food preferences. Social influence is only effective when other people's opinions or behaviors are visible.

Therefore, the only way to avoid the effect of social influence is to make a decision in secret. The use of written ballots instead of voting by show of hands promotes independence of opinion and avoids conformity. The anonymity of ballot papers gives people the opportunity to express their personal opinions even more confidently. It can be useful to have participants present their views in writing prior to the meeting. A small thing, but a written testimony before talking to other participants makes it harder to stray from one's own beliefs and increases the likelihood of voicing different points of view.

The same general principles can be used to influence others. One opinion can get lost in a discordant chorus of voices, but reduce the size of the group and this voice can become much more powerful. Instead of trying to win over the entire audience at once, it is much easier to reach a consensus by going around all the meeting participants individually in advance. Starting with supporters, you can create a small coalition that will allow you to win over the undecided.

Another way to set the direction of the discussion is to speak first. Let not everyone agree, but your opinion can, like a magnet, attract those who did not have their own clear position.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the endless queues for croup, Japanese cheese pie, or another regular culinary trendy product, most likely, are not worth it. Surely there are other equally wonderful places nearby that do not require a fifty-minute queue.

End of introductory segment.

The world, as animals see it, has opened up to man quite recently thanks to the development of scientific technologies. Many creatures see our world as gray and blurry, but some see it in complete darkness and even in such spectra in which a person cannot see the world around him.

For example, animals from the family equine(horses, zebras) see the world with the help of peripheral vision, tk. their eyes are on the sides of their heads and their viewing angle is 350 degrees. They perfectly see what they have on the side, but there is one drawback - they do not see what is in front of their nose. The horse sees two pictures and cannot combine them into a single image like a human. They also see shades of green and blue, but the rest is blue.

This picture is seen by a horse

Monkeys see as a person. They distinguish between green, red and blue colors. But some primate species cannot see them.

Birds see a wider range of colors than humans. They are able to see ultraviolet light. Pigeons can see 5 zones of the spectrum and distinguish millions of different shades.

At vulture, vulture or eagle- binocular vision. Thanks to this, they can find prey at a height of thousands of meters.

What owls go blind during the day - a myth. They see well both day and night, but at night their vision sharpens and they see 100 times better than a person.

Cats and dogs do not have very good eyesight, so they rely more on their noses and ears. Cats do not see colors well, but they have better night vision. Dogs have slightly better vision than cats - they can distinguish between yellow and blue colors.

This is the range of colors that dogs can distinguish

How do cats see in the dark?

Eyes are sensitive to movement, so they do not notice prey that is not moving. But at night, their eyes pick up infrared signals, i.e. the heat that radiates from the body of animals.

So the snake sees a man in the dark

Insects, thanks to the special structure of their eyes, see the world around them as a mosaic. There are many corneal lenses in the eye of insects, and each lens transmits its own image, and is a part of the overall image. Some insects have up to 30,000 of these lenses in their eyeballs.

It is interesting that some representatives of the marine fauna have better eyesight than land animals. For example, has the most thorough vision. While most animals have only one receptor responsible for color perception, this crustacean has 8 types at once. No one even knows exactly how many colors his eyes can distinguish, but this figure will be fantastic.

Incredible Facts

For centuries, people had no idea what and how animals see. Recent scientific research has opened up an amazing world of diversity of vision in our smaller brothers. Many animals see the world in fuzzy shades of gray or washed out and pale colors, while others can see in complete darkness and even see colors that are outside the human visible spectrum.

Here are some amazing facts about how animals see.

Horses

Horses and similar animals such as zebras have their eyes set on the sides, giving them a prominent peripheral vision. This gives them early warning of a predator, and allows them to escape if necessary. However, this advantage also has its drawbacks. So, for example, these animals practically cannot see what is directly in front of them. Another disadvantage is the lack of binocular vision. Because of this, the horse always sees two images and can't merge them together, as a man. And although horses have better night vision than humans, their color vision is quite low. They see shades of blue and green, but they see most of them in shades of grey.

Monkeys

Old world monkeys and primates basically see the same way as humans - they trichromats and can see red, green and blue. But many New World monkeys don't see all these colors.

There is no pattern among different species. In fact, there can be up to 6 different types of color blindness in one family of monkeys, and just like in humans, color blindness is more common among males than females.

Birds

Many birds see differently. For example, pigeons can practically see millions of different shades, and they are among the best able to determine the colors of any animal on Earth. They have many more cones in their retinas than humans, and therefore they are able to see at least five zones of the spectrum.

In general, diurnal birds see a much larger range of colors than humans, including ultraviolet light. It is believed that the colors in the vision of birds are much brighter than those of humans. Hunting birds such as the eagle, kestrel and vulture have excellent binocular vision, allowing them to easily distinguish prey from thousands of meters away.

Dogs and cats

Dogs and cats do not have very strong eyesight. For sensory detection, they primarily rely on smell and sounds. Both dogs and cats color blindness, but cats have particularly poor eyesight. For example, dogs can sometimes distinguish yellow from blue. Most cats have poor color discrimination and are best at focusing narrowly on an object. However, they have better night vision than in humans. Both cats and dogs have a well-developed sense of perspective and depth, and their eyes are more sensitive to movement.

snakes

Snakes use their normal eyes during the day, and at night they change to another pair of "eyes". These thermometers can pick up infrared heat signals from warm objects in their surroundings.

During the day, their vision is more dependent on movement. In fact, they ignore or fail to notice prey that is completely immobilized.

Insects

Due to the segmented structure of the eye, many insects see objects in a completely different way than humans. They are known for their compound eyes, known as ommatidia or corneal lenses, having the appearance of a convex hexagon.

Contrary to popular belief, insects do not see hundreds of copies of a single image. Rather, each lens is a small part of the overall picture, like a mosaic or puzzle.

Some insects have up to 30,000 lenses in their eyeballs. But perhaps the most interesting insect in terms of vision is the dragonfly. The dragonfly's brain works so fast that it perceives movement in slow motion.

Insects perceive colors, but do not see as clearly as other animals.