Late_Cretaceous

You know the type - obnoxious in-your-face know-it-alls. The person who has to voice (loudly, frequently and often repeatedly) their strong opinions on just about everything. Nevermind looking at something from both sides of the issue, or seeing things in shades of grey - everything to them is black and white. And they are always right, no matter what. Facts be damned, who needs them when they can make instantaneous judgements about what is what. They wont consider other points of views, or even bother to check to see if they have their information correct/complete.

My question is this; why do so many people hang on their every word? I always seem to encounteer groups where the converstations are dominated by one individual who fits the above description. What gets to me is the people who seem to willingly listen to them and take everything they say at face value.

Is it that some people are just too timid to say anything, or that they don't want to form their own opinions about things so they would rather absorb those of people they perceive to be "strong"?

LeftCoast

You just described Fox News......

My $0.02: I think the reasons are two fold.

First, a great many people are intellectually lazy and don't want to take the time and effort it required to become even marginally informed on a topic and in a second, related, vein, many people are looking for certainty in an uncertain world. As in most cases, the more you learn about something, you only come to understand how much it is you don't know and for a great many people that is unsettling - hence the predominance of religion in modern life.

Evaluating the nuances between many varied shades of gray is a lot harder than simply accepting black vs. white descriptions provided by the know-it-alls. It�s been my observation that if you deliver your pronouncements with conviction and certainty and act a little offended if you are questioned a great many people will accept whatever you say so long as it fits into their pre-conceived notions about that world.

Lel

If I may be so cynical, it is simply more interesting to listen to opinionated loudmouths than to people who see things in shades of grey and are generally willing to consider both sides of an issue. Consider political pundits and prominent talk radio figures -- the most prominent ones are generally opinionated loudmouths.

Monkeybot

Hey, it's not my fault I'm so popular...

Daleth

Ending with an ellipsis? That means she's about to say something else! Something brilliant!

Dal

Opera Nut

I have left many leisure time groups because of some damned dominant male who has to order everyone around and feel superior.

Infidelettante

How else would we know the dominant ones?

Gnomelord

I prefer just to make things up as I go along, nobody seems to check so long as it sounds good.

Gurdur

I had to give up my claque, they were demanding too much money in wages.

I may be a dominant male, but I'm not a rich dominant male.

Friar Bellows

Yes, I've often wondered this. Why do so many people think that the loudest are the smartest? This tends to inflate the already inflated opinion that most of the dominant types have of themselves. Which makes other people even more impressed. Some advice, though: don't allow yourself to get pissed off by a dominant type more than once. After that, just try and ignore/avoid them as best you can. Of course it's not easy to do that given that society rewards these proto-psychopaths on a regular basis by supporting their rise to power.