Group Psychology – acting like everyone else does

Have you ever been in a group of people and found yourself acting like an idiot? No, not an idiot, but acting like everyone else did? Maybe you were not acting like yourself. Whatever the circumstances, we tend to behave like those around us. The more people that are acting in a certain way the more likely we are to act in that way. Are you normally a passive person? Ever been to a football game? While there did you stand up and cheer when something happened? Maybe sports isn’t your thing, how about politics. I recently saw a large crowds of people dancing at both the Democrat and Republican convention’s. It was quite horrible. There wasn’t one coordinated movement in the bunch of them. Do you think they dance like this at home? Doubtful. Do you think they were dancing because others were dancing? Absolutely.

They call this getting caught up in the moment. Finding yourself in a cheering crowd and you may cheer along with them. Some call this the mob mentality. An angry mob may do things that on their own, the members of the mob, would not.

As an example of this, Napoleon, when he invaded Egypt converted to Islam. Why? He knew how groups thought. He knew that if he aligned himself with their group, they would be more accepting of him. We gravitate towards those that are most like us. This is an example of someone understanding the meanings of group psychology and using it to their benefit.

Why does this happen? Why are we like that? I think the answers is in our genes. There are some things I believe are true regardless if you believe in God or Evolution. We eat, sleep, dream, and die. Some things are universally true regardless of how we got to be here. This I feel is one of them. We are social creatures. We are built to be social. We are built in such a way that once put into a group we tend to behave like that group so that we fit with them. Regardless if this was born out of need from evolution or divine doctrine, it is true. Once we begin to relate to a group we begin to defend that group. Which leads me to the second part of this post. How we defend a group.

Group Psychology – defending the groups we relate with

Once we are aligned with a certain group, we tend to defend that group even if we feel that group is wrong. Think about this for a moment. I myself am a Washington Redskins fan. If someone that is a fan of say the Dallas Cowboys were to attack the redskins record, I would defend them even if they were right. Lets say you happen to love to go to Renaissance festivals and someone says all those festivals are silly, would you defend them? Lets say you are a Cuban American, would you defend all issues relating to Cubans coming to this country seeking sanctuary? How about you are Latino and are asked about immigration from to the United States? You’ll defend the groups you are aligned with, as would anyone. If you are a scientist, you’ll defend and support the views of the scientific community. If your country is attacked, you’ll defend it.

I think we can all agree that we will support those groups we are aligned with. Here’s the twist. You, like me and everyone else, are aligned with more than one group. Lets during the argument between me and the cowboys fan, someone else walks up and says football is too violent of a sport. Guess what happens, I and the cowboys fan will forget our differences and defend the larger group of football fans. Democrats and Republicans are attacking each other every day leading up to the historic 2008 election, but if these United States were attacked, they would band together and defend her and support each other in her defense.

Think of this like intersecting circles. There is one giant circle to which we all belong. The circle of humanity. If ever there was something that challenged all of humanity, we would quickly forget our infighting and attack this common threat. Next is the circle of ethnicities. Irish, English, Jewish, African, American, we all cling to our ethnicity. We sometimes cling to this before country. If someone attacks our ethnicity, regardless if they are a citizen of the same country as we are, we’ll defend our heritage. Next, is country. Each circle now gets smaller and smaller and are within the larger circles above like concentric circles. Next, the levels of circles begins to overlap with others. There may be people that are of the same ethnicity that live in the same country but hold to different political groups. Or hold to different social groups. Here we begin to see smaller and smaller circles of groups of people. This can go down to the smallest group, perhaps a group of moms in a neighborhood or the local PTA group. Regardless what it is, the smallest level is always what we relate to the most.

What’s this all mean?

I believe that this theory of circles can be used to better understand each other. Some people may be defending a topic and you’re not quite sure why. A quick glance may lead you to the conclusion that the person you’re arguing with is not defending his position but his groups position. Once you can determine this, you can change how you are approaching this. Get yourself into one of the person’s groups. Meaning, let this person know that you and this person are in a circle together. Once you both can relate to each other that you are aligned in thinking in one circle, you can have a softer tone and easier discussion about the circle that you are not aligned in. Once we are able to stop defending our point as if we are being attacked we can hold a more constructive discussion, one in which we would all benefit.