Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Beware The Social Contagion. Contending with Weak-Minded People.

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Beware the Social Contagion.Dealing with past abuse.People who can't control their emotions, or see things the way you do.The cold plunge. Cold Showers.Discussing Differences between mend and women.Dealing with a harsh break-up.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground podcast. Number 44, Echo Charles, sitting here with me. I've been thinking a lot about this term I heard a little while ago, but it seems to just be more and more important and more impactful all the time. The term is social contagion. In a nutshell, it's like a fad, right? It's like a fad of something. But, you know, when you think of fad, you think of hula hoops, right?

Or Rubik's cubes. What you don't think of is something like suicide or cutting yourself, which is a thing that happens with people. They get into self-harm. So I was just reading a little bit about it. Some excerpts here from Psychology Today.com. It starts off with this little example in 1774. Johann Wolfgang von Goltz published a book called The Sorrows of Young Werther. In the novel, the main character, Werther shoots himself with a pistol after he's rejected by the woman he loves.

Shortly after the book's publication, there were reports of young men dressing in yellow pants and blue jackets like Werther and shooting themselves in acts of hopelessness. This resulted in the book being banned in several places. The phenomenon of copycat suicides, which has been verified numerous times by research in recent decades, has become known as the Werther effect. I also heard Jordan Peterson, I think he talked about when he was on our podcast. If you have, they have like experiments or they have data that when they put suicide prevention signs up in a town or in a city, you know, call 1-800 if you're feeling depressed to help. you get over suicidal thoughts. Suicide increases. Because that idea is getting in people's head.

I guess that's not quite a social contagion. It's to me that's the idea of this idea getting into your head being placed there. The idea gets placed there and if the idea wouldn't have been placed there, it's like a little seed that gets planted and then it grows. But what I think part of the social contagion aspect is that right now there's so many ways that a seed can get planted in your head. primarily social media. I mean, you can stare at this freaking little screen all day and have people pump ideas into your head.

Going back to this article, social contagion is more a general phenomenon extending far beyond suicide. It is the spread of ideas, attitudes, or patterns or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity among other factors. the American Psychological Association's definition of social contagion lists a few of those processes. So you got the first one is imitation, copying the behavior of another personal group intentionally or unintentionally. That's interesting, right? That's not even intentional. You see what everyone's doing, you kind of go along with it. In some situations, there can also be an element of mimicry in which people without conscious awareness or intent automatically copy other people's physical.

movements. That's that happens and you know you hear um like interrogators they'll they'll mimic people's movements to kind of build some rapport where what's the word rapport rapport with them. Yeah. You know you put your hand on your head. I put my hand on your head kind of like show you that I'm along with you. Yeah. Next one. Conformity and the pressure to conformity is the adjustment of one's opinions judgments or actions so that they become more consistent. with the group, boom. We all know about that. But are you aware of it?

I think that's like the overall underlying thread of my thought. This is, are you aware of this stuff? Are you aware that's happening? Are you aware that you're imitating people? Are you aware that they're conforming to their ideas? Are you aware of it? Are you thinking through things and actually questioning what you're doing? Are you just going along with it because you're unaware of the fact that it's happening?

Next one. Universitality. universality, sorry, universality, which refers to the tendency to assume that one's attitudes or behaviors are common to everyone in the group and are permissible because everyone's doing it. That's what we do. Everybody's doing it. As in the case of rule breaking by a crowd or mob, this has a disinhibiting effect as well as reinforcing effect, setting up a circular reaction.

So you do it, I do it, you see that I did it, you do it more, I do it more, when he's going this this circular reaction an anemone, impulsivity and feelings of invincibility also play important rules in mob situations. So that's, you know, mobs is an example of this, of this social contagion. And so if you're in a mob, if you're in a group and you start doing things, question what you're doing.

That's my underlying thread of this whole thing. That's what I've been asking myself. It goes on to this other section. Some other factors mediating social contagion might include the need for approval or affiliation, sharing the other's goals or inferring or understanding their intentions and motivations, being, quote, inspired and impressed by the other and in some cases trying to gain recognition or even notoriety by surpassing the, quote, accomplishment of the other. as in the case of antisocial, psychopathic acts such as mass shootings.

You know, you see that with a kid's drinking alcohol. Yeah, adults too much. I have, sorry, adults drinking alcohol. Yeah. Just like, oh, I'm going to drink more than you. I played that game before. It's a dumb game to play. It's social contagion.

I should have been saying myself, why are you doing this right now? Yeah. What are you doing? What are you trying to prove something to? Yeah. We're trying to prove there, buddy. This is an interesting one. Emotional contagion.

God, we're seeing this all the time, right? The rapid spread of an emotion from one or a few individuals to others as in a political rally or a sports stadium pack with fans or even just a room full of friends. So your emotions are contagious. Which, you know, from a leadership perspective, we say that all the time. Hey, if you start to panic, everyone's going to start to panic. If you remain calm, everyone starts to remain calm. But man, if you allow yourself to get caught up in this stuff without being aware of it, to me, that's a problem.

Group think. The next one, group think, as may occur, for example, in political organizations or in corporations in which cohesiveness or the desire for cohesiveness within a group produces a tendency among its members to agree at all costs, which leads the group to minimize conflict. and reach consensus without critical evaluation without critical evaluation sounds good to me that's what we're doing as you know you you always make that comment that's what we're doing sure you know that's what we're doing hey that's what we're doing yeah you're on board i'm down for the cost you know would you do that remember when you did your parents ever say to you if your friends wrote off a cliff would you follow them you know what that is though really and it makes you kind of put this into perspective a little bit really when because when your parents say that to you it's like they're putting it

into perspective that you're just freaking following the group and not critically thinking about or whatever your parents did say that to you yes sir okay yeah plenty times and i and i was just like whatever i didn't think too much about it till later when i was an adult i think my parents were mostly telling me like hey you should do what other people are doing freaking settle down homes like can't you just act like everybody else why do you got to be over here they know they want to me to be more conforming and more group think they're telling you hey jump off a bridge do something normal yeah do something normal that's literally like I you know I was like a straight edge kid yes sir I was that that was not normal you know the normal kids were out you know

smoking some weed smoking cigarettes smoking cloves you remember cloves they might not have made it to your a oh clothes that well it was like a thing not I mean this is the 80s too brother this is the 80s You know what? Smoking gloves. So when you were straight edge, how old were you about? You know, and here's the thing. We've kind of gone through this before. So straight edge is like a whole like legitimate movement and there's factions in it and all this kind of stuff.

But when you get turned on to the philosophy? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was like between the age, this is for me between the ages of like probably 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 17, 18. I'm in the Navy. So when were people like smoking cigarettes or smoking weed or whatever? Let's say 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Wow, that's crazy, man. Well, I don't know.

I've heard that before, too, but I don't know. Maybe I was in a bubble or what, but there would be people smoking who were like 13, 14, 15 years old. And that was just crazy. Oh, it was like for everyone. Yeah, they're like, that's crazy. Smoking weed? No kids that I knew of until like maybe senior year type situation. Yeah.

That I saw anyway. And tell you what, nowadays, it's crazy. Like kids are into all that kind of crap at a young, young age. But I was in that mode. And most, very few people, other people, you know, most of the kids, most of the kids that were like my age. And they were, you know, smoking some weed, drinking some booze, you know, getting after it in that methodology. Yeah. I understand.

Continue on here, members of a group can often feel peer pressure to go along with the crowd for fear of rocking the boat or out of concern for their teammates' perceptions of them. Cool, peer pressure, we get that. Presence of a highly influential domineering authoritative role model. So that's when people are just going along because, you know, like, whatever, the big leader's doing it. the human propensity to be strongly swayed by compelling narratives. Oh, good story. A person's got a good story.

That's why you see advertisers use that kind of stuff. Stories. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Stories to make you think a certain way. Yeah. They do a good job sometimes too. Yeah, I think sometimes.

Sometimes. Sometimes there's commercials that they did a good job on that one, but that's what I think. I don't think, wow, I want to buy that product. I said, man, that advertiser did a good job on that one because I'm questioning these bastards. Yeah. Because I'm probably the worst person to advertise too.

Yeah. I'm such a jerk when it comes to people trying to get me to do shit. Isn't that kind of, doesn't that kind of, and maybe something just to think about, isn't that kind of like an opening to advertise to you even more effectively, though? Because you're kind of rigid in that way. I mean, we can argue about the semantics of it,

like rigidity, but if you're like the worst guy to advertise to, all you got to do is basically find the correct way to advertise you and it might be super highly influential, you know? If someone pulls that off, I'll probably be devastated. You know, I'll probably be buying whatever, you know, floby hair cutting vacuum thing for your head. Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by average. What is there?

I don't even know the difference between advertising and marketing. I don't know. Maybe marketing is the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. But let's say a marketing campaign to get Jocco to not do something. To get me to not do something. Yeah, that's like not a typical thing, right? Usually a commercial is going to want you to do something, usually.

Unless you have these like causes or whatever, but I think someone could get you. They'd be like, all they got to do is launch this campaign. Oh, they could use reverse psychology. Exactly, right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I think. So I'm going to be aware of reverse psychology. Yes.

That someone's going to go, do not try this. You will not like this drink. Yeah, and then show a bunch of stories that you like, basically. basically disagree with or show a bunch of people that you're like can't relate to or something. You're like, I'm not like them. Can't relate. Yeah. Which is very easy to do.

And this falls into suggestibility. The social, social contagion is accelerated by a high degree of suggestibility. Suggestability is a highly potent, underestimated force with manifestations extending far beyond social contagion. What is suggestibility? Suggestability is the quality of being. inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others, or being easily influenced by other people's opinions.

It also usually applies, implies a state of uncritical compliance with an influence. This is, so I think to what you were trying to say about me a second ago, this is where I think I have a tendency just to be like, I'm not listening to this person. That's trying to make me do something. I have a real that'll piss me off. Now, look, I'm not out of control with it.

I'm not like, but I definitely am aware that my first reaction is going to be a pushback. I don't show that, but that's my internal mental reaction is a little pushback. I have to kind of keep it in check so I can actually listen to what people have to say. But it's a little bit of a internal discussion in my head. These manifestations of social contagion and suggestibility are, wide-ranging. Here are a few examples in the mental health field in which a problem probably has been at least amplified by social.

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