The Power Of Socialisation

Most of our Operating System is set up in our childhood. Some of it becomes updated as we grow and are capable of understanding more. We learn that Father Christmas doesn’t really bring us our presents. That adults don’t know everything and a hundred and one other things we once believed aren’t true. However there are still many, many beliefs that never get changed, because we have never had the time, or reason, to consciously think about them.

 Therefore the Socialisation process, what Freud called the introjection of Society’s view, is very important. Introjection means initially your Parents and Teachers tell you something over and over again. Eventually it becomes so ingrained that you do it to yourself in your own head. Freud used this in terms of a conscience, but I think it relates to what we believe.

This process begins with our Parents or Carers. We learn not just from what they consciously teach, but from their every thought, word and action. It doesn’t matter what you say, people can still pick up on your thoughts through your body language. Parents are particularly important as they provide the basic template for our Operating System.

The next stage is when the Child goes out to School or Nursery. Here they learn that not everyone does things in the same way or thinks the same. There are different rules and codes of conduct.

This expands their Operating System. What they gained from their Parents and Siblings, were Personal Operating Systems. Now they are being exposed to Group Operating Systems. As it belongs to a bigger number of people it is far broader and more inclusive.

However it is likely to still be somewhat idiosyncratic. For example, I went to a school in London that predominantly had pupils from an Irish Catholic background. So there is still some biased aspects of the Operating System than if I had gone to say a mostly Hindu school.

Later we become immersed in the culture and rules of the company you work for and the industry you work in influence our Operating System.

The media shepherds us towards Society’s Operating System, by the slant that they put on their stories. Ridiculing and savaging those who are wrong by their Operating System’s interpretation. And making Martyr’s of those who support and exemplify it.

Government then puts in place laws on the outer boundaries of Society’s Operating System, which define the boundaries that are accepted by society.

Generally people like to think that they make their own mind up. Research studies consistently demonstrate how we can become swayed to conform and obey.

If you doubt the extent to which we rely on or are influenced by society consider the following psychological studies into conformity.

Asche gave a group of 7-9 participants a number of questions, such as;

Is the line on one card the same as line A, B or C on another card.

It was set up so that the answer was fairly clear and simple. Initially the groups answered correctly for a few rounds. Here’s where the experiment gets to be fun. All but one of the participants are in on the secret that this is not really a perceptual test as advertised. They all begin to answer incorrectly. The individual being studied is therefore always last, or second from last.

Film of the experiment shows the participant shaking his head and looking at his fellow group members in utter disbelief, yet when it comes round to his turn to answer he goes along with the group. Instead of trusting his own judgement, he instead conforms and trusts their judgement. 3 out of every 4 participants conformed to varying extents.

Remember this was in tests where the answer was clearly wrong. After the experiment participants gave their reasons for conforming. Some didn’t want to upset the experimenter, some figured they must have made an obscure mistake and others began to question their judgements ‘were their eyes playing tricks on them’ or ‘were seeing things differently where they are sitting’. Another reason given was that they didn’t want to be different from the others.

Do you see any similarity between those findings and decisions and possible views or beliefs you’ve dismissed because they don’t fit in with what everyone else sees?

Asch’s experiment has been carried out with many twists. One of the most interesting discoveries was the finding that there is almost no difference, in terms of influence, between 3 people in agreement and say twelve. With one other person there is almost no influence, two some, but three increases influence a great deal.

How does this relate to your life?

In a group of friends are you swayed, even unconsciously, to conform?

We each perceive reality through our perceptual filters. These relate to our individual construction of reality. This is why five people each have a different explanation of a single event. Hence the notorious unreliability of eye witness testimony.

From this individual construction of reality we develop our own best response to a situation. However when we become aware this differs from ‘what is normal’ we begin to doubt our judgement.

During the sixties, some Social Psychologists became interested in how ordinary citizens in Nazi Germany were turned into cold-blooded killers merely ‘following orders’. A decade after Asch’s studies Stanley Milgram sought to increase our understanding of obedience.

To do so Milgram advertised a memory test. When participants turned up they were introduced to a young man in a lab coat and a middle-aged accountant also taking part in the experiment (actually one of Milgram’s assistants). The experimenter explained to both that the study was looking into the effects of punishment on learning. They picked a name from a hat as to who would be the teacher… rigged of course.

The accomplice was strapped into a chair, which would deliver an electric shock every time the teacher flicked a switch. A small shock was given to the teacher, before beginning, to convince him of the reality of the experiment.

Then he left for the Teacher’s room. Every time the Learner made a mistake in responding, or failed to respond, to the Teacher’s question… the Teacher was to give him an increasingly powerful electric shock by flicking a switch. Of course this was all staged, in the learners room was a tape recording.

Initially there is little response from the Learner that develops into pleas to escape the experiment to agonized screams to refusal to continue to eerie silence.

If the teacher should waver the experimenter had a script of four responses;

  *

   Please continue
  *

   The experiment requires that you continue
  *

   It’s absolutely essential that you continue
  *

   You have no other choice, you must go on

There were also reassurances that the shocks although painful, will not cause any permanent damage.

Before conducting the experiment Milgram polled 40 Psychiatrists as to what they thought would happen. They predicted less than 1% of participants would administer through to the highest and potentially fatal level.

What do you predict, what percentage of participants would be willing to kill someone because an experimenter tells them to, even when the fellow participant pleads to be let out?

The results shocked the scientific community. 62.5% of participant, more or less two in three continued giving shocks up to the maximum of 450 volts.

It was not sadism or lack of concern on the part of the Participant. Participants displayed a variety of anxious behaviors. Some twitched; others laughed hysterically or verbally attacked the experimenter. They sweated, stuttered, trembled, groaned, bit their lips and dug their nails into their skin. Three participants had full blown, uncontrollable seizures.

It was partly due to the effects, at the time and after the research, on Participants that research like this isn’t carried out today. Many Participants struggled as they realized the behavior they were capable of.

This experiment has been conducted all over the world many times to demonstrate its reliability. Some twists have been attempted to explain why participants are so obedient.

Some claimed that because the location of the experiments was Yale University this afforded greater authority to the experimenter. Even when conducted from a small and rundown office the obedience rate was still 47.5%. Perhaps the setting played a part for some participants, but there is still some deeper underlying dynamic.

When the participant was in the same room the compliance rate who continued shocking right up to the end dropped to 40%. A sizeable number continued even when rather than flicking a switch the teacher had to actually place the learner’s hand on to the plate giving the shock.

When other teachers (assistants of Milgram) were present and refused to continue after a certain point compliance reduced to just 10%.

When another person was flicking the switches obedience rose to 92.5%.

When the experimenter left the room obedience dropped to just 20.5%. Many only pretended to press the buttons or used a lower voltage.

What obedience and conformity both share said Milgram was the

‘…abdication of individual judgement in the face of some external social pressure…’

This is key to understanding how to improve the quality of your life. When you allow another to influence you, you have given control of your life away. Perhaps not consciously, but every decision you take or avoid taking shapes your life.

Because of the way our Operating System is created… unless we take the time to revisit the beliefs we created, or accepted, as we developed our Operating System… we are living out the beliefs of other people.

In this sense we are mentally and spiritually cloning. The purpose of our lives can be found not in our sameness, but in our uniqueness.

Our uniqueness brings something new to the world. Our sameness adds no value and so we doubt our value.

We conform and obey in order to please and pacify others. We need to belong to the pack and think that if others knew what we were really like… no one would want to know us. This isn’t necessarily a conscious thought, but if you analyse it right down to the root of conformity, it is what you’ll find.

Because of this we strive to put up an image that fits in. Of being just one of the crowd.

Have you ever been waiting anxiously for an test result, where you could have got anything from top mark to failure… but to stop the nail-biting, you would willingly have given up your chance for a top grade – to ensure a pass mark?

That is the kind of reasoning that leads people to sell out their dream in order to fit in. Being normal becomes overwhelmingly important. This is why fashions and magazines that set the tone have become increasingly popular. The intense focus on famous people’s private lives and the success of reality television programs are due to this need to find out about others.

Do they really do the same as me?

Am I normal?

When people find that there are many others who feel the same way, much of the pressure they felt is relieved.

To some extent we do tend to grow out of this as we get older and start to relax and just be ourselves. And this links in with research findings that show that we become happier as we age.

The rushing around like headless chickens that we often do… attempting to build success, power, status and affection… in order to prove our value to society is mistaken.

The value we as humans create is not in following rules, ideas and processes… it is in expanding and creating new things, new ideas and processes.

The people who are most valued are those who rewrite the rules. Not the people who make minor incremental improvements.

So if you feel that you lack in value, it may be because you aren’t creating value. Not because you are inherently lacking in value.

What most of us do, is to follow the Operating System we have by default. Then we become too caught up in life to even consider that we may not be thinking for ourselves. We look around and think that the fact that we lack self-esteem, motivation, success, happiness and so on is because of a fault in us.

We look for all the ways in which we are broken. As we tune into that wavelength, our perceptual filters look for evidence that we are broken, and start to find it. Now we can prove that we are not worthy and consequently we lack self-esteem.

The real problem is that as we are not thinking for ourselves we are not adding to the world. If we revisited each belief and decided what we as an Individual chose to believe, it would tune us in to the wavelength where we are most comfortable and happiest.

Then around us we would see all we needed to learn, all the circumstances and people we need in order to create, whatever it is our unique talents can. This new idea, creation, process or service then expands the boundaries of the Universe. We grow and the world grows. Then there is no question of your value. To you or to the world.

If you look at any person who is valued, famed and acclaimed… from Pop Stars to Inventors to Entrepreneurs to Statesmen you will notice that not one of them ever got there by being the same as everyone else. Each had the courage to stand out from the crowd, in some way, and to stand up for their beliefs. Often they will have been ridiculed by many, but in time as came to understand their perspective, they became our Hero’s and Heroine’s.

What conventional wisdom and beliefs do you disagree with?

Why?

If you have solid reasons for disagreeing… and can find a better way, a better solution… dig, test your ideas and adjust to what life shows you… you could be on the way to finding your unique message. Spread your message. Expand the world. Then you will never doubt your value ever again.