Elevator Psychology and The London Underground
This vintage 'Candid Camera' style video of people in an elevator is a great illustration of the power of conformity. In fact the reaction of the last victim seems almost too perfect to be real:
There's actually a real-life version of this set-up on the London underground system. Most of the lifts down to the stations let people in one side and out the opposite site. But sometimes they swap it about and it is like a 'normal' lift where you get out the same side you went in.
A sign usually lights up above your head to tell you which door will open, but often only a few people notice it. So the lift veterans turn to face in the opposite direction to everyone else in the lift.
Sometimes if enough people turn confidently then almost everyone will follow. More often, though, only one or two turn around and this causes confusion. People start edging round like the first guy in the video, unsure whether they should follow this apparently confident, grizzled lift-rider, or stick with the pack.
It usually ends up with people facing in all sorts of random directions until finally, with an almost audible sigh of relief, the doors open and the tension is released.
Compared to this video in which it's four people moving in unison to influence one person, real life is often much more ambiguous, hence the less reliable results.
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Good video! This shows how important other people can influence one's action. Even if it makes no sense!
It would be interesting to see if the mentality of society as a whole is what has affected the outcome recently. This video was around the early 70's right? Children of the survivors of the depression and the great war, vietnam and the hippies vs. squares. I wonder if it was a hipster..... would he/she have just asked everyone what in the world they were doing:)
I think the first two simply came to the realization there was another elevator door and that perhaps it would open the other way. I don't necessarily think this is conformity. As for the last man though... Wow, talk about stupid.
I think this was staged.
I disagree completely that it was staged. I think there may be some difference between these days and when the show was filmed, but don't underestimate the power of social pressure. What you see in this elevator has been shown repeatedly in experiments in dramatic ways. You can start with Solomon Asch and Stanly Milgram's work for starters. Zimbardo continues to write books about how the pressures of social contexts get people to do things they would otherwise find horrific.
Candid camera was an incredible show. Who knew they were watching social psychology in action. Someone should make a movie with the old CC clips and weave them together with explanations of all the great social psych experiments.
Thanks for posting this. Superb.
This is interesting, however as someone who currently lives in London but having lived many years in the United States I can say that indeed in the US I've noticed this phenomenon, but here in the UK less so. Instead lifts--and I'm speaking of ones in the tube-- tend to be like a cattle pen everyone facing every which way. The difference I suspect is that usually it is because people are trying to talk to one another, or are quite frankly not sober. This would be an apt explanation but yet the lifts in the library I find the same phenomenon where people do not all face the same direction even if one person does the confident 'this direction' stance. I think times may have changed as well although as a student of psychology I know full well the effects of herd mentality :)
Wow. That's so funny! Perfect timing, too. Just back from vacation - we rode in many elevators and my kids kept asking, "why does everyone face forward?"
That's not just Candid Camera-style; it's the real thing. Vintage Candid Camera, from the early days of Allen Funt's work. I think he used to lecture at universities on psychology using these clips. You can see them, and hear more about his opinions, on the Candid Camera DVDs, which are a riot. (No, I don't have any connection to Candid Camera!).
Besides the expriment of Asch in 1970s, this one tell the influences of conformity as well. Intresting video.