In the Labyrint (vpro, dutch) episode about ‘power of the masses’, some interesting issues surface.
The episode refers to scientific experiments about the power of a both big and small groups to influence and steer individual opinions and responses; describing ‘I vote exactly like the othershink, even when I know I was right‘ and ‘I vote exactly Iike I think others would or think I should’. Examples are given of people influencing people and robots influencing cockroaches. A high degree of acceptance through social or physical recognition seems an important factor necessary for this influence to occur.
How can this knowledge be used to bring groups together in generating and sharing solutions in complex situations? With (exploiting) or without (repressing) ‘fake, dishonest personal rationalisation of personal, individual behavior’.
We – humans – are suggested to feel safe within groups borders. Because of are social group survival skills. Let’s extrapolate on this: what if today, we have become our own predators? It is not hard to imagine a species at the top of one of the foodchains on this earth, we more or less only have boosted ‘in-species’ competition. Coexisting with group safety there is individual (and group) competition. Perhaps we’ve learned to cannibalise socially. I am curious how Frans vd Waal would respond to this statement.
After watching the video below (vpro, belgian) to the end, we can ask ourselves whether -the concept of- group safety is a driver for our behavior or simply an emerging result due to our evolved individual ability to ‘physically read’ social signs.
I’ll be focussing on smaller groups. A light introduction to mass behavior – from a marketing perspective – is available at ‘the herd’ by Mark Eals.
