Human nature and forums

[Jenta]

This might get a little deep but I think what I'm about to say is pretty much the truth.

It's just human nature I guess.

Don't know how many of you have seen Runaway Jury with John Cusack, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman but there's a scene in the jury room that applies.

One guy wants to rule for the defendant and his reasons arent altogether clear. Well John Cusack kind of lets him hang himself for the real reason he want's to vote the way he does. Once that is let out, they put all their feelings aside and look at the evidence impartially and rule for the defendant.

This brings me to Forums. If you were to take some tape and cover up where the posters name shows up and turn off signature displays and then just look at what was written, the responses would be different than if you knew who was saying what.

Recently, I brought up and issue but lets not go there again. Lets talk about human nature.

If a person with 1 post were to post something and lets say the main admin where to disagree with me, most people would follow the admins lead and agree with him. If the poster where to post the exact opposite and the admin would likewise switch his position 180 degrees the same thing would happen.

This happens on my forums, everyone tends to agree with me more because I am the admin. Not really because of what I say. The same goes for this forum and basically most forums.

Would be an interesting experiment to disable any identifiable information on the poster and see how different things would come out.

Any psychologists in the room?