god forbade...must reading

Social Contagion

    Psychological research has thoroughly documented people's tendency to respond to the behavior of people around them.

• You are more likely to do something if others around you are doing it, too.

• You are more likely to do something after hearing that others are doing it than after hearing that it is good for you.

• You are more likely to do something if you think others are doing it.

• Conversely, you are likely not to do what others around you are not doing.

    We are intertwined with our social environment. While we often like to think about, and define, ourselves by our individual characteristics, our destinies are decided in more profound ways by our social ecology.

    The ocean enables the fish, not vice versa.

    One mechanism of social contagion is modeling and imitation. Although imitation, aping, is often associates with, well, apes, we humans may be better imitators than the primates.

    In an early experiment a chimpanzee was brought into the home to observe a ten-month old boy.

    Nine months later, the experiment was stopped after noticing their son, instead of developing normal human language, began imitating the barks and gestures of the ape.

    The media influences social contagion directly, as it broadcasts actual revolutions to potential revolutionaries. But the media also has indirect effects. Because of global communication and access to information, young people can find out for themselves what is going on around the world. They can see how others live, they can broaden the horizon of their imaginations, of possibility. Once you can imagine a different life, you are more likely to want it. Once you understand the existence of options, you are more likely to pursue them.

    Democracy often emerges from social upheaval, though it has many prerequisites.

    New technology and media, which have expanded the reach of social contagion, have also enabled global learning, everyone has equal access to much knowledge. Information, capital and human resources are all more accesible, more mobile, more easily acquired than ever.

Noam Shpancer, Ph.D.

in Insight Therapy

Psychology Today