Do we have a deep-seated need to feel part of a empowered group?
I ran across this concept in an profile of Greta Thunberg in the FT.
Sabherwal’s paper found that people who had heard of Thunberg were likely to feel a stronger sense of “collective efficacy”, the belief that they could make a difference by acting together.
That’s an interesting feeling to stick a pin in: the sense that you are part of a group with strength.
Having named the feeling, I think we can ask and immediately answer two follow-up questions:
Does it feel good to feel strong collective efficacy? Yes it does.
Do people want to feel good? Yes they do.
Which implies! Amongst all the groups a person encounters, they will move up the gradient towards stronger collective efficacy. i.e. if there are two groups, A and B, which are otherwise entirely equal but group B has a lever to choose the colour of the bike shed, people will move to group B.
Or if people feel alienated in society, the “containing” group, but some political group, or radical organisation, or whatever, promises the ability to change how things work then, by osmosis, those groups will grow in popularity.
Way too simplistic conclusion: the answer to radicalisation is to increase the collective efficacy of society - to increase people’s ability to be part of meaningful change - reducing the osmotic pressure that drives people into fringe groups.
It seems obvious written down like this, but I hadn’t thought of it from quite that angle before.
Practically, if we assume that “collective efficacy tropism” is a thing that humans have, we can ask questions about limits: How small can collective efficacy be, and still modify behaviour?
Like, do the follow qualify as teeny-weeny collective efficacy ocean floor thermal vents:
Posting a book review on Amazon – does the simple existence of the text box create a feeling of “oh I could leave a mark here” and therefore an almost indiscernible nano tribalism to the “Amazon” group?
Sharing highlights on a website, cf my shared social attention experiment the other week – does this femto-togetherness create any kind of measurable gravity?
Clearly at a larger scale, it’s incredibly powerful to feel part of something. Remember reddit’s amazing Place project of 2017.
But if it’s really an honest-to-goodness human need, even if imperceptible in many cases, what strategies are there to design for collective efficacy, from micro to macro?
And if a software product is designed without any such possibility (I pick on software because with physical spaces you get it for free) then will it always feel, in some nameless way, hollow?
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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Do we have a deep-seated need to feel part of a empowered group?
I ran across this concept in an profile of Greta Thunberg in the FT.
That’s an interesting feeling to stick a pin in: the sense that you are part of a group with strength.
Having named the feeling, I think we can ask and immediately answer two follow-up questions:
Which implies! Amongst all the groups a person encounters, they will move up the gradient towards stronger collective efficacy. i.e. if there are two groups, A and B, which are otherwise entirely equal but group B has a lever to choose the colour of the bike shed, people will move to group B.
Or if people feel alienated in society, the “containing” group, but some political group, or radical organisation, or whatever, promises the ability to change how things work then, by osmosis, those groups will grow in popularity.
Way too simplistic conclusion: the answer to radicalisation is to increase the collective efficacy of society - to increase people’s ability to be part of meaningful change - reducing the osmotic pressure that drives people into fringe groups.
It seems obvious written down like this, but I hadn’t thought of it from quite that angle before.
Practically, if we assume that “collective efficacy tropism” is a thing that humans have, we can ask questions about limits: How small can collective efficacy be, and still modify behaviour?
Like, do the follow qualify as teeny-weeny collective efficacy ocean floor thermal vents:
Clearly at a larger scale, it’s incredibly powerful to feel part of something. Remember reddit’s amazing Place project of 2017.
But if it’s really an honest-to-goodness human need, even if imperceptible in many cases, what strategies are there to design for collective efficacy, from micro to macro?
And if a software product is designed without any such possibility (I pick on software because with physical spaces you get it for free) then will it always feel, in some nameless way, hollow?