Lord777
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In theory, we like to think that we value diversity of opinions and respect other people's points of view, but in practice, everything happens exactly the opposite. We tend to split into groups, and then sacredly believe that others are wrong, simply because they are different. This psychological phenomenon is called the illusion of asymmetric discernment and explains why some social groups consider themselves better than others, and any political struggle is reduced to a competition of intolerance. Journalist David McCraney investigates the phenomenon.
In 1954, in eastern Oklahoma, two groups of children nearly killed each other. They lived in nature, played games, built dwellings, cooked food, were in the same territory, but did not suspect the existence of neighbors. Each group lived according to its own rules of behavior and solved the problems of survival in its own way. Each tribe consisted of 22 boys, aged 11-12 years, selected by psychologist Muzafer Sheriff to conduct a psychological and anthropological experiment. He placed the children at Robbers Cave National Park in a scout camp in the middle of caves and woodland, divided in two. The boys within the groups did not know each other until they arrived at the camp, and the Sheriff assumed that, finding themselves in a new environment and away from their familiar culture, they would create a new one.
The scientist and his colleagues disguised themselves as camp staff and conducted observations without interfering with the natural process of group formation. Social hierarchies emerged very quickly - leaders and followers emerged among the boys. Norms were formed spontaneously: for example, when a boy from the Rattlesnake tribe injured his leg, but did not tell anyone about it until the evening, such behavior in the group became the norm. New rituals also quickly emerged: in both groups, leaders established the practice of saying prayers before meals. A few days later, their initially arbitrary sentences became commonplace. They came up with their own games and agreed on the rules. They started a land-clearing project and established a chain of command. They created their flags and tribal symbols.
Soon, both groups began to suspect that they were not alone. They found cups and other signs of civilization where they had not gone before. This forced them to adhere even more strictly to new norms, values, rituals and other elements of the general culture. At the end of the first week, the Rattlesnakes found members of a different tribe on the camp's baseball court. From that moment on, both groups were predominantly occupied with thinking about how to deal with their opponents. The unnamed group reached out to staff with questions about strangers. When told that they called themselves "Rattlesnakes", the group chose the name "Eagles" - after the birds that eat reptiles.
The sheriff and his colleagues were planning to push the groups against each other in competitive sports. They were interested in how the subjects would behave in conditions of limited resources. The fact that the boys began to compete for the baseball field was in keeping with the nature of the study. Scientists moved on to the second stage of the experiment - the tribes had to compete in baseball, tug-of-war, football, treasure hunting and other games. The winner was entitled to a prize: a medal or a knife. When the boys received the knives, some of them kissed them before hiding them from the other group. The Sheriff noticed how much time each group devoted to discussing the stupidity and awkwardness of their rivals. Every evening they were absorbed in defining the essence of their enemies, inventing offensive nicknames for them. The sheriff was amazed by this example - after the appearance of competition, each of the groups wanted to establish themselves in the opinion that the enemy was worse, and began to look at him as the worst. Everything they learned about each other turned into an example of how not to behave. If they noticed similarities, they simply ignored them.
The researchers continued to collect data and plan the next block of work, but it turned out that the boys had their own plans. The experiment began to spiral out of control. Several Eagles noticed that the Rattlesnakes flag was left unattended on the baseball court. They ripped it off, burned it, and hung it back up with a charred rag. After a while, the Rattlesnakes saw what had happened, and in response they stole and burned the Eagles' flag. When the "Eagles" discovered the result, their leader challenged the enemy to a fight. The two leaders met face to face, but scientists intervened in time. On the same night, "Rattlesnakes" in war paint broke into the houses of the "Orlov", overturned the beds and tore the mosquito nets. The staff intervened again when both groups began to collect stones.
The next day, the Rattlesnakes insulted the stolen jeans of one of the Eagles and hung them as a flag outside the enemy camp. The Eagles waited until the Rattlesnakes were distracted by their food and staged a retaliatory raid, and then fled to their cabin to organize a defense. Camp staff intervened again and dissuaded the Rattlesnakes from retaliating. The raids continued, as did staff interventions. The two groups clashed in a massive brawl that scientists had to separate. Fearing an accident, they pushed the boundaries of the tribal settlement from each other. The experiment showed that in order to turn a summer children's camp into a place of action for Lord of the Flies, it is enough to introduce competition for resources.
Interestingly, this behavior is in full swing in our own subconscious every day. We do not sharpen arrows, but we consider our position in society, our alliances and confrontations. We see ourselves as part of some groups, not others. As boys, we really enjoy spending time inventing offensive nicknames for outsiders. How we see others is largely determined by what psychologists call the illusion of asymmetric insight. In order to understand what this is about, first we will consider how identities appear and why they are not quite real.
Before going to work, we put on a mask and uniform. We have a suit for communicating with friends who do not share our beliefs, as well as a suit for a family. We alone are not like ourselves in the presence of a lover or friend. Like Superman, we dress up in a phone booth when we bump into old school friends in the store or a woman queuing up for movie tickets. But as soon as we part, we change our clothes back and explain to the one who was with us at that moment why we behaved so strangely. He understands, because this pretense is not alien to him either.
This is not a new concept. The idea of the existence of different personalities in different circumstances has been known for a long time, but we rarely talk about it. The idea is so old that the word personality itself comes from the Latin word persona, which the Greeks used for acting masks. This concept - actors and performance, persona and mask - has been conceptualized many times throughout history. Shakespeare said: "The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors." William James said that a person has as many entities as people know him. Carl Jung especially appreciated the concept of personality and said that this is what a person really is not, but what he is, in the opinion of himself and others. This is an old idea, but we, like everyone else, come across it in our youth, forget for a while, and suddenly remember it again during our life, when we feel like posers or deceivers. But that's okay, and if you never step aside and feel ridiculous when you put on your social mask, then you are probably a psychopath.
Social media distorts the picture. In them we are geniuses of public relations. We can not only create alternative personalities for forums, websites and digital smokers, but also control the image of this person in each of these resources. Witty tweets, photos of our gourmet cuisine in the kitchen, funny memes, a new place we visited - it all tells the story of who we want to be, who we should be. Does anyone click on these links? Is anyone grinning at this video? Does anyone find fault with grammatical inaccuracies in our answers? We ask these questions even if they do not rise to the surface of our consciousness.
The recent uproar over the excessive availability of personal information and the loss of privacy is overwhelming. As citizens of the Internet, we know that we always hide the truth about our personality: our true fears, sins and vulnerable secret desires - in exchange for meaning, goals and connections. In a world where we can control everything that is presented to the public, the “real” depends on who we assume is on the other side of the screen. It annoys us that parents want to be friends with us on Facebook. What will they think of us? In life or in a photo, this desire to hide some aspects of oneself in one group and manifest them in another seems natural. We are ready to be vulnerable, but not all at once and at the same time.
We wear social masks just like anyone since ancient times. Groups also have masks. Political parties develop platforms, companies issue guidelines to employees, and countries write constitutions. Every human community, every institution, from the gay pride parade to the Ku Klux Klan, strives for integrity through the development of norms and values that help to separate oneself from outsiders. It is noteworthy that when we are involved in a certain institution or ideology, we are simply unable to look at the outside world except through this distorted lens, called the illusion of asymmetric insight.
How well do you know your friends? Do you see how they lie a little to themselves and others? Do you know what is holding them back, do you know their hidden and underestimated talents? Do you know what they want, what they are most likely to do in a given situation, what they will argue about, and what they will turn a blind eye to? Do you notice how they start posing when they feel vulnerable? Do you know the perfect gift for them? Have you ever said with confidence, “You should have been there. You would really like it "- about something that you enjoyed for them, as if by proxy?
Research shows that you probably feel all of this and more. To you, your friends, family members, colleagues and buddies are translucent. You can easily label them. You look at them as an artist, a grumbler, a freeloader, and a workaholic. “What - what did he do? Oh, well, not surprising. "You know who will go with you to watch the starfall and who will not. You know who to ask for advice on spark plugs and who to ask for vegetable farming. You believe you can take their place and predict their behavior in almost any situation . You are convinced that everyone but you is an open book. Of course, research shows they think the same way about you.
In 1954, in eastern Oklahoma, two groups of children nearly killed each other. They lived in nature, played games, built dwellings, cooked food, were in the same territory, but did not suspect the existence of neighbors. Each group lived according to its own rules of behavior and solved the problems of survival in its own way. Each tribe consisted of 22 boys, aged 11-12 years, selected by psychologist Muzafer Sheriff to conduct a psychological and anthropological experiment. He placed the children at Robbers Cave National Park in a scout camp in the middle of caves and woodland, divided in two. The boys within the groups did not know each other until they arrived at the camp, and the Sheriff assumed that, finding themselves in a new environment and away from their familiar culture, they would create a new one.
The scientist and his colleagues disguised themselves as camp staff and conducted observations without interfering with the natural process of group formation. Social hierarchies emerged very quickly - leaders and followers emerged among the boys. Norms were formed spontaneously: for example, when a boy from the Rattlesnake tribe injured his leg, but did not tell anyone about it until the evening, such behavior in the group became the norm. New rituals also quickly emerged: in both groups, leaders established the practice of saying prayers before meals. A few days later, their initially arbitrary sentences became commonplace. They came up with their own games and agreed on the rules. They started a land-clearing project and established a chain of command. They created their flags and tribal symbols.
Soon, both groups began to suspect that they were not alone. They found cups and other signs of civilization where they had not gone before. This forced them to adhere even more strictly to new norms, values, rituals and other elements of the general culture. At the end of the first week, the Rattlesnakes found members of a different tribe on the camp's baseball court. From that moment on, both groups were predominantly occupied with thinking about how to deal with their opponents. The unnamed group reached out to staff with questions about strangers. When told that they called themselves "Rattlesnakes", the group chose the name "Eagles" - after the birds that eat reptiles.
The sheriff and his colleagues were planning to push the groups against each other in competitive sports. They were interested in how the subjects would behave in conditions of limited resources. The fact that the boys began to compete for the baseball field was in keeping with the nature of the study. Scientists moved on to the second stage of the experiment - the tribes had to compete in baseball, tug-of-war, football, treasure hunting and other games. The winner was entitled to a prize: a medal or a knife. When the boys received the knives, some of them kissed them before hiding them from the other group. The Sheriff noticed how much time each group devoted to discussing the stupidity and awkwardness of their rivals. Every evening they were absorbed in defining the essence of their enemies, inventing offensive nicknames for them. The sheriff was amazed by this example - after the appearance of competition, each of the groups wanted to establish themselves in the opinion that the enemy was worse, and began to look at him as the worst. Everything they learned about each other turned into an example of how not to behave. If they noticed similarities, they simply ignored them.
The researchers continued to collect data and plan the next block of work, but it turned out that the boys had their own plans. The experiment began to spiral out of control. Several Eagles noticed that the Rattlesnakes flag was left unattended on the baseball court. They ripped it off, burned it, and hung it back up with a charred rag. After a while, the Rattlesnakes saw what had happened, and in response they stole and burned the Eagles' flag. When the "Eagles" discovered the result, their leader challenged the enemy to a fight. The two leaders met face to face, but scientists intervened in time. On the same night, "Rattlesnakes" in war paint broke into the houses of the "Orlov", overturned the beds and tore the mosquito nets. The staff intervened again when both groups began to collect stones.
The next day, the Rattlesnakes insulted the stolen jeans of one of the Eagles and hung them as a flag outside the enemy camp. The Eagles waited until the Rattlesnakes were distracted by their food and staged a retaliatory raid, and then fled to their cabin to organize a defense. Camp staff intervened again and dissuaded the Rattlesnakes from retaliating. The raids continued, as did staff interventions. The two groups clashed in a massive brawl that scientists had to separate. Fearing an accident, they pushed the boundaries of the tribal settlement from each other. The experiment showed that in order to turn a summer children's camp into a place of action for Lord of the Flies, it is enough to introduce competition for resources.
Interestingly, this behavior is in full swing in our own subconscious every day. We do not sharpen arrows, but we consider our position in society, our alliances and confrontations. We see ourselves as part of some groups, not others. As boys, we really enjoy spending time inventing offensive nicknames for outsiders. How we see others is largely determined by what psychologists call the illusion of asymmetric insight. In order to understand what this is about, first we will consider how identities appear and why they are not quite real.
Before going to work, we put on a mask and uniform. We have a suit for communicating with friends who do not share our beliefs, as well as a suit for a family. We alone are not like ourselves in the presence of a lover or friend. Like Superman, we dress up in a phone booth when we bump into old school friends in the store or a woman queuing up for movie tickets. But as soon as we part, we change our clothes back and explain to the one who was with us at that moment why we behaved so strangely. He understands, because this pretense is not alien to him either.
This is not a new concept. The idea of the existence of different personalities in different circumstances has been known for a long time, but we rarely talk about it. The idea is so old that the word personality itself comes from the Latin word persona, which the Greeks used for acting masks. This concept - actors and performance, persona and mask - has been conceptualized many times throughout history. Shakespeare said: "The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors." William James said that a person has as many entities as people know him. Carl Jung especially appreciated the concept of personality and said that this is what a person really is not, but what he is, in the opinion of himself and others. This is an old idea, but we, like everyone else, come across it in our youth, forget for a while, and suddenly remember it again during our life, when we feel like posers or deceivers. But that's okay, and if you never step aside and feel ridiculous when you put on your social mask, then you are probably a psychopath.
Social media distorts the picture. In them we are geniuses of public relations. We can not only create alternative personalities for forums, websites and digital smokers, but also control the image of this person in each of these resources. Witty tweets, photos of our gourmet cuisine in the kitchen, funny memes, a new place we visited - it all tells the story of who we want to be, who we should be. Does anyone click on these links? Is anyone grinning at this video? Does anyone find fault with grammatical inaccuracies in our answers? We ask these questions even if they do not rise to the surface of our consciousness.
The recent uproar over the excessive availability of personal information and the loss of privacy is overwhelming. As citizens of the Internet, we know that we always hide the truth about our personality: our true fears, sins and vulnerable secret desires - in exchange for meaning, goals and connections. In a world where we can control everything that is presented to the public, the “real” depends on who we assume is on the other side of the screen. It annoys us that parents want to be friends with us on Facebook. What will they think of us? In life or in a photo, this desire to hide some aspects of oneself in one group and manifest them in another seems natural. We are ready to be vulnerable, but not all at once and at the same time.
We wear social masks just like anyone since ancient times. Groups also have masks. Political parties develop platforms, companies issue guidelines to employees, and countries write constitutions. Every human community, every institution, from the gay pride parade to the Ku Klux Klan, strives for integrity through the development of norms and values that help to separate oneself from outsiders. It is noteworthy that when we are involved in a certain institution or ideology, we are simply unable to look at the outside world except through this distorted lens, called the illusion of asymmetric insight.
How well do you know your friends? Do you see how they lie a little to themselves and others? Do you know what is holding them back, do you know their hidden and underestimated talents? Do you know what they want, what they are most likely to do in a given situation, what they will argue about, and what they will turn a blind eye to? Do you notice how they start posing when they feel vulnerable? Do you know the perfect gift for them? Have you ever said with confidence, “You should have been there. You would really like it "- about something that you enjoyed for them, as if by proxy?
Research shows that you probably feel all of this and more. To you, your friends, family members, colleagues and buddies are translucent. You can easily label them. You look at them as an artist, a grumbler, a freeloader, and a workaholic. “What - what did he do? Oh, well, not surprising. "You know who will go with you to watch the starfall and who will not. You know who to ask for advice on spark plugs and who to ask for vegetable farming. You believe you can take their place and predict their behavior in almost any situation . You are convinced that everyone but you is an open book. Of course, research shows they think the same way about you.
