Have you ever wondered how “those people” can be “soooo stupid”?
Or how they can “possibly believe that”?
One part of the answer is SOCIAL PROOF. We humans are social animals, and at a “base-level” (at our core), we are aware that our perspective on life, living and being is LIMITED.
So what do we do? We look around us to see how OTHERS react to ideas. Others in our group, that is. And our group tends to be people that look like us, act like us, think like us – that’s why they are OUR GROUP. If they like an idea, we tend to believe the idea is TRUE.
Our group gives us SOCIAL PROOF for the truth of an idea (democracy, freedom, love, power, justice, card tricks and so on). This has no connection to whether it’s the truth or not – all it has to do with is us feeling GOOD ABOUT AN IDEA because those around us agree on it. This agreement causes “good feelings in us”. Disagreement causes “bad feelings in us”. Magicians use this all the time. Imagine I have a secret helper (he knows the deck of cards is TRICKY). I ask him to “make sure it’s a regular deck”. He examines it and says, “Yep… no tricks here.” OTHERS IN THE GROUP trust him. That deck of cards is now NOT TRICKY to them. It’s social proof of something that is NOT TRUE.
As a society, we MUST rely on others to help us see the truth (because society is VERY COMPLEX), but social proof is particularly challenging when anti-social media – my joke phrase for modern social media – sends us into silos of “confirmation bias”. We literally eliminate folks that do not conform to our group’s ideas. Consequently, our biases are confirmed … over and over and over … and we have even GREATER social proof that our ideas are right.
So what can we do about this? First Step. Be aware that SOCIAL PROOF exists. Be aware that it exists (with all its biases) in US … not just in others. Of course you can see it in others but that doesn’t matter. You must first see it in YOURSELF (beam in another’s eye stuff here … see religious text). THAT’S the important thing. See it. Recognize it in yourself and the truth may ACTUALLY be clearer and more easily discovered, otherwise … we’re just making ourselves feel …well… nice.
Social Proof written by Steve Trash
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#socialproof #magician #confirmationbias #antisocialmedia #socialmedia #perception #socialspychology
