Social Contagion

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Ego
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Social Contagion

Post by Ego »

A group of Crossfitters run past a sidewalk cafe somewhere in Brazil. One patron mistakes them for a group running away from something scary, then another and another. The patrons begin running in the direction the Crossfitters ran. Eventually the entire restaurant is in a panic and follows.

https://twitter.com/RuidoEnLaRed/status ... 0438033408

Social contagion.

Examples? How do you recognize it? How do you avoid falling victim to it?

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by jacob »

Happens to people who perceive reality intersubjectively, that is, through their association with other people. Their thoughts are not their own as much as an emergent phenomena that drives group cohesion. That's a convoluted way of saying that some people will change their behavior and what they say and even how they see things according to what the people around them say or do.

It's avoided by grounding perception in something else than people, for example, the ability to show your work or personal arrogance or strong beliefs.

Both effects exist in combination in people. It's certainly easier to avoid the contagion insofar one DGAF about other people's opinions or one's relation to the group. Whereas for those who care the greatest about this [group conformity] (Kegan3), it will be very hard to extract any independent opinion: "I don't know.. what do you think".

Contagion can actually be used to spread ideas with some effect. If you can somehow gain entrance to the In-group, the intersubjective people will agree with you just because you're you rather than what you say. However, upon meeting someone else from another in-group they may instantly flip and believe the opposite.

Also see, Asch experiment and Roadtrip to Abilene Paradox.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

A note about social contagion/intersubjective perception is that because it occurs outside of the conscious mind in most cases (Kega3), it can actually manifest inside the conscious mind as if it's your own idea. Which is to say, intersubjective perception can literally shape the reality the conscious mind is experiencing to some degree. This is why it's so insidious.

Ie, if your group starts to treat you as X identity, you can run the risk of beginning to experience yourself subjectively as that identity at Kegan3 because your consciousness literally does not contain the model to conceptualize this. (Hence why you get those studies of students who are told they're gifted becoming actually gifted etc)

It helps to have a working model of whatever social group you're in (which is going to change by group) and become more aware of how group norms are driving other people so you can spot them when they start to drive you. Which is to say, Kegan4/5 contain the ability to gain conscious awareness into group processes at a higher level so you are more aware of what is driving you and others.

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unemployable
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by unemployable »

Trick question, all the Crossfitters will be letting everyone know they Crossfit, allowing the rest of us to avoid them.

More seriously, this describes bank runs. And toilet paper shortages. And recessions. And eventually we all need to get to our money or wipe ourselves or build up and survive on that 4% withdrawal rate. Sure everyone's an idiot, but sometimes it pays to be the idiot. I've regretted acting out-of-character far more often than true-to-self.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by ertyu »

We evolved to have an instinct for social contagion for a reason. The question is differentiating between the cases contagion is adaptive and the cases it's not. If there was indeed a shooting/robbery, running away as soon as you receive the perceptual "signal" would have been perfectly adaptive. I guess it's a matter of training that moment where your rational part comes online at a time when your lizard brain has been triggered and responds on automatic

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Seppia
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by Seppia »

unemployable wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:10 pm
Trick question, all the Crossfitters will be letting everyone know they Crossfit, allowing the rest of us to avoid them.
:lol:
unemployable wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:10 pm
More seriously, this describes bank runs. And toilet paper shortages. And recessions. And eventually we all need to get to our money or wipe ourselves or build up and survive on that 4% withdrawal rate.
“Don’t panic; but if you do, panic first”

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Ego
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:17 pm
Their thoughts are not their own as much as an emergent phenomena that drives group cohesion. That's a convoluted way of saying that some people will change their behavior and what they say and even how they see things according to what the people around them say or do.
unemployable wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:10 pm
Crossfitters will be letting everyone know they Crossfit,
There is an emergent phenomena that encourages people to achieve more together in a group than they would individually. Crossfit may be an extreme example. ERE has elements of it too.

How would we identify and filter the manipulative negative emergence while cultivating the positive?

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by jacob »

Ego wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:06 am
How would we identify and filter the manipulative negative emergence while cultivating the positive?
I believe good cooking requires a good recipe and good ingredients. They do not substitute for each other although they can influence each other. However, I'd start by filtering the ingredients as they are much harder to change than the recipe.

Add: This means relying on individual wisdom (evaluated knowledge) over "the wisdom of the crowd". Wisdom is key and it can not be taken for granted in crowds nor in individuals.

Also see Stoa2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MGQgQZHx1Q

7Wannabe5
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think the general solution is to train yourself to respond rather than react. However, the combination of tending towards lazy, oblivious and contrary may also serve.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by Myakka »

Ego wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:06 am
How would we identify and filter the manipulative negative emergence while cultivating the positive?
I think the identifcation happens when people like you and me listen to people who have been less mesmerized by the indoctrinating story. This is what we have done by listening to Jacob's commentary on American assumptions about how to live. As someone who didn't have our childhood indoctrination and someone who was not its target audience it was easier for him to not be fooled by it.

I think that listening to alternative voices is a good pro-active step to take. I think that listening to information that is targeted at someone else is a good pro-active step to take.

(It is still a story made to fool somebody -- but it is not a story made to fool a white middle-class American like me.)

Such alternatives in my experience are often neutered when they become too popular, so one needs always to keep on looking.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by grundomatic »

Ego posted this in a journal discussion. I wanted to bring it here for discussion.

https://thefortyeightlawsofpower-blog.t ... nhappy-and

Essentially the lesson to be learned is that emotional states and character attributes are infectious. Spend time with happy, generous people, and become happier and more generous. Spend time with unhappy, chaotic people and lose the throne of Bavaria.

If there are negative and positive infectors, are others neutral? On a scale of 0-10, if I'm feeling down in the dumps at a 4, and seek the company of a friend that averages an 8, am I going to bring them down as they are bringing me up? I'm guessing that there are a few people solidly anchored to their number for whatever reason, and that most others are vulnerable to infection. I know I'm certainly the latter. I probably would have benefitted greatly several times just this year by simply getting up and walking away from a 2.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by ertyu »

grundomatic wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2022 11:13 pm
On a scale of 0-10, if I'm feeling down in the dumps at a 4, and seek the company of a friend that averages an 8, am I going to bring them down as they are bringing me up?
so, my personal opinion is that no, you won't bring them down. there are skills one can develop, both in dealing with one's own doldrums and communicating about them, and in holding the space for others when they're feeling down without burning yourself up in the process. "Don't hang out with negative people" always struck me as an immature bro take. Yes, sometimes one should distance oneself from people who hurt more than they help; I personally am nc with my family of origin bc im 40 and i have not yet found a way to be around them and be whole. but at the same time, part of genuine connection and friendship is being there for each other and holding space for friends when shit sucks. today me, tomorrow you, or however that saying went. sometimes, you'll be the one who's down and would need someone to talk to, and sometimes, your friend will need someone and you'll be the listener and the person that encourages. If I hear someone say "don't hang out with negative people," in all honesty, I would not want to hang out with them much because we clearly have a mismatch of values

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The ability to balance our needs for autonomy and attachment is called differentiation. Differentiation is a scientific process that occurs in all species. For humans, it is about becoming more of a unique and solid individual through relationships with others.
https://www.therelationshipblog.net/201 ... -schnarch/

The article, and the books by Schnarch, addresses the need for "differentiation" within our most intimate relationships, but it can also apply to friendship. Some humans tend towards creating overly rigid and distant boundaries in defense of their own critical need for self-aware self-care, and other humans tend towards creating overly close and weak boundaries. Both of these tendencies will limit personal growth. Overly simplistic examples would be:

1) My rule is that I avoid negative or poorly behaving people.
2) It is wrong not to help people who are feeling down or acting out their negative feelings.
3) "Hey Dude, I love you, but I am not going to be able to do this anymore until you take some steps towards taking better care of yourself. Please let me know if you need more help with such and such specific actions."

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by DutchGirl »

ertyu wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2022 11:44 pm
today me, tomorrow you, or however that saying went.
This one is, in Latin, above the gate to my home village's cemetery: hodie mihi, cras tibi.

By the way, grundomatic, I'm also easily susceptible to other people's mood. However, maybe you and I both can become better at maintaining our own (better) mood in the presence of people who are depressed/depressing. I'm not saying that we will become perfect at it or that it's always possible (and maybe sometimes it's even a positive thing to be more susceptible), but maybe sometimes we can better learn to recognize the situation and protect our mood/our mental health more.

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Ego
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Oct 26, 2022 10:45 am
2) It is wrong not to help people who are feeling down or acting out their negative feelings.
Perhaps it is just a SoCal thing but I believe the number of hypersensitive narcissists in society is exploding. They feed on non-professional attention and help. They have an insatiable appetite for it. This encourages them to act out, again and again, to get more attention. A downward spiral.

Pulling others down the spiral with them is one way they derive pleasure.

https://www.psypost.org/2022/08/study-s ... sism-63733

In both studies, high sensitivity and narcissism shared ties to neuroticism and introversion, and neuroticism explained a large part of the covariance between the two traits. Both traits were also linked to greater symptoms of psychological distress and a higher likelihood of mental health diagnoses.

“Our study showed that high sensitivity and hypersensitive narcissism are not the same thing, but they do have significant overlaps,” Jauk told PsyPost. “In particular, they do share self-regulatory mechanisms which likely counteract personal growth in the long run. This is particularly true for individuals who show strong ease of excitation – a characteristic of high sensitivity which circumscribes irritability by external stimulation, paired with an attitude that discomfort must be avoided.”

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Ego:

I might not have communicated clearly, but I was suggesting that both my 1 and 2 were somewhat dysfunctional responses, and 3 would be a more differentiated response. I'm not sure what kind of behavior you are describing as being explosively growing in society, but perhaps an extreme example would be the teenage daughter of a friend of mine who told her BF that she was being physically abused by her father in order to gain the BF's sympathy/care. So, the question would be why is there such a growing dysfunctional need in our society for others to display the behaviors in alignment with nurturance? OTOH, it might be more the case that there is an overabundance of humans with the desire to nurture who have no appropriate outlet. For example, you are 29 years old, but there are no human children in your life due to demographic shift, so you have to get a dog and a dysfunctional friend to nurture. Or, maybe things really do suck a lot harder than they used to, so rise in level of complainy-pants is warranted. Dunno.


ETA: It's also the case that although the stereotypical individual who might exhibit behavior that could be described as "talking too much about feelings" would likely be a young urban female, the demographic group most likely to actually commit suicide is old, rural and male. Allowing yourself to appropriately express your emotions and vulnerability to others requires a good deal of flexible, core strength. The sort of narrow rigidity associated with maintaining "stiff upper lip" no longer, and truly never did*, works.

* My ex spent summers on the farm where his great-uncle hung himself from the rafters of the barn circa depression era.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by grundomatic »

@7wannabe5
That article seems to be the perfect recommendation for how to make space for friends with burning oneself up, as @ertyu put it, or maintaining one's mood while around the depressed, like @DutchGirl said. I've bookmarked that, and all the articles to which it links. The real key is how to do those things that are bulleted pointed when some don't come naturally. More skills to learn. Also, thanks for the clarification on the numbered responses. It helped me.

@DutchGirl
When I first read the article I linked, I thought that it would be good skill to be able to insulate oneself from being affected by others. Then I realized if you do that, you give up the benefits of spending time around people with desirable traits. Maybe after learning to insulate oneself, the next step would be the ability to turn it on and off, to insulate or absorb at will. But yes, I too worried that if I were to train myself to insulate myself totally to those around me that I might be giving up some valuable part of myself. I'm thinking, though, that as I follow the leads from @7w5's article I will find that it will be enriching instead.

@ego
I think I know the type you are talking about. They seem to get a lot of air time on mainstream media--the increase in number could be infection from television.

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Ego
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:28 pm
So, the question would be why is there such a growing dysfunctional need in our society for others to display the behaviors in alignment with nurturance? OTOH, it might be more the case that there is an overabundance of humans with the desire to nurture who have no appropriate outlet.
Good point. I believe you are right. Lacking a deep connection to other humans leaves people feeling untethered and susceptible to contagions of all sort. That's what I see here. They try to buy their way out of the untethered feelings.

Strangely, we have had a string of four covid companion dogs die suddenly as people were forced back to in person work. So far, none were replaced.

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Re: Social Contagion

Post by grundomatic »

And yet the number of emotionally needy children that I see daily indicates (to me) that there are many not nurturing that do have an appropriate outlet. Why do more than half of my students report that they'd rather be at school than home? Why are there any number of students asking to spend recess in my room? Even as a school-loving teacher's pet type, as a kid the only thing I would have missed recess for was Oregon Trail on the green screen. And I don't think I would ever have told anybody that I'd rather be at school than at home playing. Or maybe it's normal for children to latch on to someone that gives them 15-60 seconds of individual attention as time allows.

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grundomatic
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Re: Social Contagion

Post by grundomatic »

I am reading a book called You Have More Influence Than You Think, and it made me think of this thread. Rereading the thread, much of this has already been covered above, but I'll share anyhow. A few notes from the first chapter:

Study participants underestimated the effect paying a compliment to a stranger would have on them, and overestimated how uncomfortable/awkward it would make that person feel.

Tailoring a message to an audience changed the opinion of the presenters in a study.

Another study showed participants overestimated by 2x how much other people are paying attention to them when they are doing something they are self conscious about (embarrassing T-Shirt), and underestimated by 2x how much other people are paying attention to them when they are just going about their lives (eating at their dining hall).

A shared experience was shown to amplify the experience. Good chocolate was rated better just by having someone else also tasting the chocolate (with no communication), and bad chocolate was rated worse.

Contagion is a thing. People copy each other.

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