Extent of Social Influence

[Yellow]

I am not sure I'll be able to convey my thoughts and ultimate question to my satisfaction. Since I don't already have the concept ironed out in my head, I clearly have no way to form a coherent ball of communication on the matter. But here goes.

I read a random line in a random thread where a person claimed, "you become who you associate with". My gut-response was, "some people do". I don't like to let spontaneous responses just sit without analysis, so I began this line of thought.

Imagine that you and your friend stand up straight. You always have. Most of the people around you do as well. But then, you and your friend move to a new place where most people slouch. You continue to stand up straight because that's what you do. Your friend starts to slouch. He slouches more and more until he is indistinguishable from the natives. Some days, he slouches more than most. When you confront him on his change, he says "everyone else slouches, so it's no big deal if I do it too". You explain to him that he knows better. That he knows it is healthier, more professional looking, and generally a higher standard of behavior to stand up straight, and that it shouldn't matter what everyone else does. He should take some pride in himself and stand up straight regardless of his surroundings. Your friend agrees in theory, but he continues to slouch. You feel disappointed and vaguely isolated.

Is it that he lacked integrity? Strength of conviction? Had he secretly loathed the straight-backed tradition of your people? Did he only keep his back straight because it was "normal", and just wanted to fit into this new regime? Did he never really believe in straight-backedness in the first place? Is he morally deficient? Are you simply being inflexible?

Imagine that instead of straight-backed v. slouching posture, it was something more serious like whether or not you went to work drunk, or whether you beat your spouse.

Does degree matter? Does the situation matter?

I may have some pretty loose morals, and I can get a little shady in my "situational ethics", but I would never compromise one of my values to accommodate the lowered standards of another. They are not like me, so why should I be like them? If you're detecting a hefty dose of self-righteousness coming from this line of thought, you're probably right, and I think it is a part of this.

I just want to understand better why some people allow are more socially influenced by others, or why some people aren't. What are the common factors in those who do and those who don't?

I'm pretty sure that level of extroversion and emotional sensitivity can be ruled out as factors. They may be loose predictors of social malleability, but they are far from a sure-thing.

I have thought about it being a difference in intrinsic v. extrinsic values. Maybe some people derive most of their standards for behavior extrinsically, so they are up for redefinition with every new environment. This would indicate an S/N divide. But then, ISTJs. I can't see one compromising his values (even if they were derived from tradition) just to match the way the wind blows. Nor an INFJ, so it's unlikely to be a Fe/Fi or Te/Ti in the stack thing either.

In fact, I'm not sure it can be explained by personality, unless this itself is a personality factor. Though, if it is, it would be impossible to measure through questionnaire. I doubt most people are aware of their propensity "become who they associate with".

Halp!

 

[Sinny91]

I've never really thought about 'people becoming who they associate with', but one of life's lessons which has stuck with me is 'judge a man by the company which he keeps'.

I tend to think it's more about 'conviction'.

If the guy was convicted to standing straight, he would have stood straight. Obviously, he didn't have the conviction. Why he didn't have the conviction will remain unknown until we ask; but we can deduce.. I deduce that 1) He actually prefers slouching 2) His desire to conform/or an increased level of apathy surpassed any desire he had to stand straight.

I think that all type's are likely to experiences these sorts of differences with all other types .. However, I think differences such as these would be most prominent in pairings/groupings of INT's, INF's, IST's, ENT's, vs ESFP, ESFJ's (fookin all SJ's)

Cuz the introverted intuitive/thinking types (all thinking types), lets face it, generally have more brass (conviction) than the rest of people's.

 

[Yellow]

Maybe my observations are skewed. I think I might be guilty of projecting.

Maybe the other person's values are not what I think they are. Maybe I keep my back straight because I really value good posture. Maybe my friend kept his back straight because he was driven to be the "best" at whatever was the norm. Maybe he valued acclaim while I valued health, and for a time our values aligned. Maybe he made no compromises at all. Maybe I was just projecting my own values onto him, and made a biased assessment of his values.

As another example, let's say me and my friend were both the best employees at work. We then got a new job where we were so far and away the best that we could afford to let things slip. I might start goofing off at work without any moral qualms because my ethic was to "be the best by producing the highest quality work", and I didn't need to invest as much time. On the contrary, my friend starts stumbling into work drunk, but he works his ass off the whole time, because his ethic was to "be the best by making productive use of your time". In the old environment, we had to be on top of our game to be the best, which meant nearly identical behavior. In this new environment, we could compromise things that were never important to us in the first place.

 

[Sinny91]

Yea, that's good. Changes in environment/ social environment would just merely highlight these differences in a way that you would take notice, but they were always there.

(or they developed over time)

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

Not every behavioral decision is tied to a value. The adage 'when in Rome' may apply. I choose to eat dinner later than I usually do because I'm in a different culture and I want to experience that culture in a tangible way by changing things up. Much of what we do is unconscious as well...we do what we do without thinking. Most people find out about their values over time by transgressing their core values and they come to the fore through dissonance or feeling of guilt/shame. To complicate things further, what I think are my values may be as a result of a shortcoming disguised as a value.

I think what you said about intrinsic vs extrinsic is a key factor. Age, experience and integrity (or lack of it) will flesh out your values and identity leaving you less susceptible to conforming for the sake of conforming in light of social influence. As you become more guided by your intrinsic values you are then free to be more malleable and can change without 'losing yourself'. It's one of those things where the more solid you are in yourself, the looser grip is needed because you know who you are and being flexible doesn't take anything from you. Looking at two people from the outside, you can't tell a person with that kind of solid identity from one who doesn't have that because they both could do a similar thing but it emanates from a different place.

 

[WALKYRIA]

I'm also currently thinking about social influence.. It's such an incredible subjetc for the likes of oursleves, INTPs.
I don't like to be influenced by people, unless I'm forced to do it in one way or another( Submission). The forces can be of different nature and of different intensity, but they are real. Social pressure, peer pressure, reputation, conformation pressure, the pressure of tradition/family/origins/hierarchy, greed... It's amazing.
If you don't obey the forces, you are excluded . If you want to be perfectly included in a society, you better conform... Or else exclusion. I used to be excluded, now I'm somehow forced to blend in.
Modern influence follows the same patterns as it did millenaries before. It didnt changed. The were knights, they are doctiors and engeneers. They were powerful blue blooded princes, they are now rich billionnaires. NOthing changed. only the names did, the principle stayed the same.

In one way our society was and is evil in nature, but because everyone follows it(peer pressure+ social pressure+ conformism pressure), well it must not be so evil after all... The weakest will die out slowly but surely, but it's okay they were weak anyways.

The pressure is very real my yellow friend. You can't resist the force. You better surrender. Or you can dance from one side to another of the force... but with the risk of losing yourself.

 

[Hadoblado]

I often find myself changing my behaviour to be in accord with that of others. It's sometimes a conscious decision, but most of the time I'm the last one to realise it. I'll catch myself doing something out of the ordinary: 'oh, we're doing that now.... okay'. I've noticed a lot of people do it, especially for mannerisms and humour, though I'm not sure how aware they are.

The most obvious occurrence was when I picked up a housemates drawl a month or so after he moved in. He's quite articulate and he's able to make use of his lexicon by slowing down his speech. Now I find myself oscillating between burst fire conversation and a one-man entmoot. Another friend actually called me out for it, they didn't like my bending to another's influence.

For moral issues, I think of it as having a number of positions available to you, and you only stick to one if you both believe it and have the belief that it is decisively correct. Firm beliefs are like the bones of your perception, and some people are spineless noodle people. When you see behaviour, are you attributing to them an internal state of firm belief that doesn't actually exist? For myself, I'm more of the spineless variety, I've got high variance in my beliefs because I've got low certainty they're all figured out. There's patterns that hold for extended periods (to the point I can't imagine changing them), but compared to the number of beliefs that are malleable they're relatively rare. For instance, my stance on any empathy problem changes like the wind. Some days I feel like the world would be better served by just killing the miserables, some days I can't get myself to squash an ant.

tldr
Exposure influences availability of behaviours, if you don't have a firmly controlled (or unresponsive) neural network the probability of you picking up a contagious behaviour approaches 1. It's not a conscious process (though can be), and I think it's attached to security of identity.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Does degree matter? Does the situation matter?

I think it does.

Considering the minimal case, even a short exchange of information is enough to alter the other person in some way, as long as that influence is enough to change the causal future of the subject as compared to the situation where the subject didn't receive it.

There's also a negative case, both interacting people retain no meaningful memory and their causality isn't altered in the future by their interaction.

It's fair to say that any memorable interaction is meaningful and changes us in some way and it can be said that we are shaped by others. It doesn't necessarily mean that we become like others, however we are shaped by them, intentionally or otherwise.

It may also be worthwhile to look at social groups as individual living constructs that have their own "life", memory and causality based on the memetic influence and tendencies of their participants. Participants of such groups get to experience and share similar information, build similar neural associations, preferences, perform similar activities and so on. Reinforcing of already existing values is a meaningful change towards the individually accepted vectors.

It's more difficult to perceive change on the progressing axis, than it is to point out the opposite or straying from that path. People who help us become more like "accepted us" are a very important factor and if it weren't for them we would end up becoming something different, something less "accepted us".

In this way it may be justified to conclude that unimpressionable individuals, who consider themselves rarely swayed or changed by others, do tend to join and participate in environments already reinforcing that belief and reality, making them both more confident in their independence and less prone to observe or accept their "becoming like others".

 

[Sinny91]

Another friend actually called me out for it, they didn't like my bending to another's influence.

Yea I spose my best friend is always calling me out on behaviors which I'm unaware that I've picked up, such as mannerisms and habits..

When in Rome do as Romans do.. and I often do, just to keep the peace.

 

[Yellow]

All reasonable conclusions. To summarize the responses, more flexible behaviors and beliefs will change to suit one's surroundings, and more firm behaviors and beliefs will either change more subtly, or will resist association with "differents" altogether.

So when DrGregoryHouse asserted in one of the anti-Muslim-immigrant threads "you become who you associate with", was he more or less correct?

Are most people so corruptible by simple exposure?

 

[The Gopher]

Are most people so corruptible by simple exposure?

Yes, this explains the mod team.

Spoiler

Clearly a joke and if I was to take it serious there are obviously other factors in that scenario.

 

[ruminator]

Posture has medical benefits to it. If the reason you are standing up straight is because you want those medical benefits, the fact that it is socially acceptable to slouch does not change the science. The medical aspect remains a benefit, so you still have a motive to stand straight.

Other values are more flexible. If you are in a country where pre-marital sex is a huge deal (morally, not due to STDS), you probably have the view that sex is a super special thing and take it seriously. If you move to a country where every single person has pre-marital sex because it is not considered special, and is just a physical act, your view on sex might change. This is because your original view was not based on hard facts that remained constant.

If, for example, your motive for standing up straight was not medical, and was for reasons of image, that is not a constant. In the new country, it might be considered cool to slouch, then your personal view on the image of posture can change.

 

[redbaron]

It's just Availability Heuristic in action.

Any person can choose to avoid the shortcut and make an effort to understand other, more alien (alien relative to their surroundings, not actually alien) ways of thinking and avoid this happening. I'd say it's largely impressionable people (of which DGH is one I'd say) who fall victim to it the most and they probably project that tendency onto others.

They have a tendency to adopt other people's traits and they assume others are the same.

 

[iAmMe]

This sounds like it could be the mere exposure effect.

Doesn't normally work for more "serious" situations. But for slouching...yeah.