Articulation

1) My argument
 
I want to argue that we should not always follow majority opinion. Many people follow majority opinion in society, in school, and even in a family. However, this could have problems extended to media, art, students' identity, and scientific experiments. I want to show some examples and reasons to support my opinion that the majority is not always right so we should not follow them all the time.


2) How I found my argument 

My first research question was, is there any reason people follow majority opinion? Then I found an example of a person's experience saying the majority is not always true, and a reason people follow the majority is because 'groupthink'. It's kind of psychology, and I realize people don't want to make a conflict with others so don't occur alternative ideas. This article helped to know about what 'groupthink' means and why the groupthink has some problems. As I continued researching, it seemed there should be an example when the majority was wrong in the past. Then I found the conflict between Geocentric and Heliocentric in 200 B.C. At that time, most people believed Geocentric and their belief lasts for a long period. However, as we know today, heliocentric is right, so I could realize again that the majority was entriely wrong. After the research, I want to know what is a connection between 'popularity' and 'majority'. I found that most people regard something popular and follow it when the majority claim those things. This article helped connect majority with popularity. I also thought that the 'popularity' could be applied to our entertainment field that only persue 'popularity', not 'quality'. Then how about schools? How about students? Aren't they affected by the majority? Of course, they really do. I realized that trends among students could influence their daily routine. Perhaps they influence in good ways. However, trends have problems in terms of finance, friendships, and so on. This could help know pros and cons of following trends. Eventually I realize always following majority opinion could cause many side effects. I think this argument will help many people make a decision critically.

3) New research questions 

I have several questions that need to be resolved.
a) What are specific examples of music or movies that only attach an important to popularity?
b) Is there any problems among students due to following the majority?
c) How can following the majority affect to identity of people?
I'll continue browsing the internet and looking for interesting articles and keeping track of my research with blog posts.

4) Connections to the Harvard Sampler 

 This argument has connection to the Harvard Sampler, with a part "The Human Mind". First, majority opinion, in other words, groupthink is really related with psychology. Also several examples to demonstrate my argument will be also related with the human mind because 'following the majority' is made by human, thinking human being. Following majority opinion takes place when people try to follow them spontaneously.