Posts Tagged Psychology

Many years ago my father-in-law took his family on a day trip to Muir Beach, just North of San Francisco. It was a very warm day and parking was hard to come by. He observed a lot of cars parked in the red zone on the road approaching the beach, so he also parked there, figuring that because so many others had done it, it was somehow OK. He was livid when he returned to the car later to discover a parking ticket and was no less livid when he noticed that everybody else had gotten ticketed too.

How our behaviors are influenced by others, is the subject of one of the most fascinating and informative books I have ever read – Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. In the book the authors present the scientific evidence of how we not only influence our friends, but also those that are three degrees of separation away from us, in other words – our friends’ friends and the friends of our friends’ friends. Their book examines not only epidemics of disease, but also suicides, politics, happiness, sadness and many other human experiences.

The book offers interesting insights, based on real science on how ideas and beliefs can go viral. These insights into human behavior can shed light on troubling events such as asset bubbles or even genocide. It seems that our primeval need to belong in groups (who would want to be an outcast when cannibalism and human sacrifice was commonly practiced) can overwhelm our rationality and our morality with terrible consequences. The good news is that the effect works in reverse also so that positive outcomes such as altruism and social justice can also be contagious. The case in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where 44 Liberian orphans were adopted by various local families is a wonderful example.

In Chapter 8 of the book, the authors describe how our behavior in virtual communities mimics our behavior in the real world. Apparently, attractive avatars in Second Life are more confident than plain avatars – regardless of the sex and looks of the real person who “owns” the avatar. In the popular online game “World of Warcraft”, a virtual disease spread in much the same way as a real disease might spread. These findings offer new avenues of experimentation for social scientists exploring the human condition.

The key takeaway is that each of us has influence over others, even over those that we have never met, but who are within three degrees of separation. If we are depressed, we can depress others. If we are happy we can, with little effort on our part, cause happiness in others. This book should be required reading in schools and colleges. Perhaps understanding our propensity to follow the crowd and the potential negative outcomes, might prevent some of our more destructive behaviors.

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• Understanding Influence; the Chris Brogan Effect (myventurepad.com)
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• forget tech, think behavior (jburg.typepad.com)