I have wrote about this before, but I think every one of us should know this information, so I'll write about it again!
Majority influence plays a vital role in maintaining social order. The fact that we biologically love to be like the rest of the world and tend to keep away from 'being different' means that we're pretty easy to control. Generally, we rely on the judgement of everybody else when accepting a widely-spread idea and don't bother to process it in detail.
Source: https://www.pexels.com
'Does everyone say we should wear purple this season? Fine!'
'People believe the world was created by a God who lives in the sky and sees everything? Absolutely!'
'The rest of the world thinks women are inferior? No problem!' (of course I'm referring to 100 years ago!)
We have a natural inclination to simply trust whatever the world is telling us. We accept that the 'TRUTH' must be real, since everyone has done the same, so what's the point in processing the information? Even when we're in doubt, we deny ourselves the right to ask questions, because we are simply terrified of being different and therefore not accepted. But if this is the case, how is the world changing?
If we look at the last few hundred years, a lot of things have gradually changed. Take some of the most important issues, like racism and misogyny. There's no denying that the world's views and beliefs on these subjects have shifted dramatically, and the generally accepted ideas are completely different from what they were 100 years ago. A very important process played the role in this major change, called MINORITY INFLUENCE.
Majority influence is easy. Monkey see, monkey do. Minority influence is a different story. It takes a deep level of processing and accepting, it takes an open mind and the ability to change.
When a tiny group of people tells you that despite what everyone is telling you, women are in fact equal and they have just the same brain capacity, you will be inclined to tell them to f**k off (100 years ago, that is). But if you do choose to listen to that groups idea, to hear their arguments and do some processing, even though you're risking to look different, you might find that their beliefs make sense.
Source: https://unsplash.com
This is a slow and difficult process, but through this we have managed to change the world over the years. Because a small group of women stood up and started fighting to get their point of view heard, women are now allowed to own property. And a few people started spreading the idea that black people are in fact just the same and they shouldn't be treated like animals. And there are so many examples. All these movements have faced extreme resistance, but when the new ideas were processed by more and more people, they slowly became Majority Influence. After this the rest of the world accepted them through the original method.
But how do YOU change the world?
You don't need to come up with a revolutionary idea, nor do you need to believe every conspiracy theory thrown your way. But you do need to:
1. Question everything!
Just because your entire family, friends or country believes something doesn't mean it's the truth. Just think about it. Does it make sense, does it sit right with you, is there a contradicting idea? What are the arguments, the proof? Take the time to process any ideas that come your way before accepting or denying them.
2. Keep an open mind!
When someone shares with you their crazy point of view that's completely different from anything you might have heard before, don't dismiss it. As weird as it may sound it might become the generally accepted belief in a few years.
Imagine you lived a few hundred years ago. You were born in a rich family with a few black slaves and you knew very well that they were inferior to you. Then someone came and told you that they aren't, they are equal and you should treat them exactly like you would a white person. You wouldn't have believed them at first, might had just started laughing at them. But if you stopped and processed that idea, listened to their arguments and thought about it, you could find that it makes more sense that what you believed before.
I'm not saying believe anything a crazy person will tell you. But think about it.
3. Shout out your view!
Maybe you heard someone talk about it, or it came to you in the shower - you discovered that you have a different opinion than everyone else on an important matter. Instead of thinking you're too small, or you can never make a difference, do something. Find other people who share the same view, talk to your friends about it, share your arguments. Just get your idea out there! That's how every major movement started, with one person with a different view.
4. Resist the fear of not being accepted!
Being 'different' isn't exactly viewed as a good thing. Not even if it's in a good way. You might have been the 'weird kid' in school just because you were a lot smarter than everyone else. So why would you want to be different on purpose?
Who we are is strongly influenced by who everyone else is. We do what we do and like what we like depends on the people around us. So how do we know that this is truly who we are? How do we know that we really like wearing purple and it's not just our desire to be accepted? The only way we could get to know who we truly are is to stop trying to be like everyone else. If we stop being terrified of seeming different we might be able to discover our true personality.
This may sound easy, but in fact it's close to impossible. We are social beings and our personality is influenced by the people around us. We have social roles that we play and adapt to. We are parents, siblings, friends, colleagues and so on, so who we are is dependent on the roles we play. But the only way we learn to play these roles is by looking at everyone else. Take parenthood for example; the only way we know how to be a parent is the way we have learned from our parents. Yes we can read a thousand books, but without concentrating on following that advice, our parenting will naturally be pretty similar to our parents'.
Source: https://unsplash.com
There are so many social rules that we follow everyday, and the way we learned them is by looking at everyone else. You didn't know how you're supposed to treat strangers on the street. Why not hug everyone? But you looked and accepted what everyone else did, without questions. You wouldn't dare doing anything different because people will judge you.
Just the same 200 years ago white children were learning how to treat black people or women. Without questions or processing.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post useful.
Until next time, Steem On!
Corina
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Animation By @zord189
It's impossible to change the world without changing our mind first. we have to change the way we think if our actions and results isn't improving everyday, and the only way we improve ourselves is to change the way we think; we can evaluate and reflect our achievements each day to figure out how can we do better each day. once we change ourselves for a better constantly, we will only realized that we already change the world without knowing it.
Be Yourself Be Good ..
Life test, God will not cost anyone more than he can .. Do the right always
Thanks for sharing
You can start buy changing things in your own life like not being a debt slave and planting some perennial crops.
I like your message here and I couldn't agree more. Questioning everything and keeping an open mind is exactly what we need to be able to form our own opinions. People are lazy in a sense where they would rather watch a 45 second new clip and use that to base their opinion on vs getting all the fact and drawing their own conclusion.
Once we can get comfortable with forming our own opinions and beliefs, It does take courage to voice it and go against the grain of the majority, but it's so worth it and history proves it so.
"Resist the fear of not being accepted!"
This is definitely the hardest part, but I feel that even the majority starts to except and even little by little cherish the fact of being different
I'll add something too.
Fight for a cause and take action!
And find like minded people in the process. Yes indeed we can change the world slowly but surely. We can save the world from further pollution if we wanted to.
It all started with curiousity of the avocado seed for me. Did you know the avocado seed can be used to make bioplastics! Amazing right? 😁
Thanks for your advice
I hope a lot more people gets to see this; very useful post.... Thanks for your efforts in bringing the world a bit closer
Very interesting post. As I have been growing older I have been questioning everything. Psychology and Skepticism have become a huge interest of mine in figuring out why people think what they do and why they believe things without researching them and forming their own opinion. Some don't seem to know any better so they just go along with the crowd. Others, as you say, are afraid to be different in case they alienate friends or families. And many are just plain too lazy to think for themselves. I hope this post opens some people's eyes.
you need to live by example its the only way to change things
Informative
@corina, es muy interesante lo que dices, pienso que la diversidad de ideas no tiene porque cambiar las propias. solo ampliarlas. y adentrarnos a buscar nuevos horizontes nos dará una capacidad de pensamientos abundantes que nos sirven de guía. Te felicito, un gran saludo, nos vemos en la cima.
We can surely change the world...not by just saying that we should change the world rather by making actions and setting new examples because actions are stronger and more impactful than our words...everyone has the potential to bring a good change in this world...and for that purpose we need to know our strengths and weaknesses.
This post has received a 12.42 % upvote from @boomerang.
I am very happy to read your post, knowing that there are many more people who think and question the normal and regular. Even though the masses will always probably be controlled bz the few and mighty, there will also always be a resistance.
Don't be a sheep.. I love the message. I usually tend to live in my own lil world of beliefs, its nice to see other people thinking for themselves too.. ;) Great article.
We all want to see positive changes in the world, but we fail to realize that to achieve that change we need to be the change we want to see. Our actions should prove the change.
Hi there 😁! Interesting post, I will try to fill the holes 😋.
You are talking a lot about how black people or women used to be viewed as inferior. Meh, it's just about power.
Let me tell you something about this views, it doesn't stop on black people or women. White people used to be slaves and considered inferior by their black/brown masters. Indians used the caste system for thousands of years. In Europe we still have the bleu blood lines. It is all about power, nothing more.
In those times, like today, if I can dominate you, then you are inferior. Just like that 😄. The only difference now is we don't use our muscles that much.
In order to be different takes a lot of mental/spiritual strength and also require the willing to make sacrifices.
Not everyone is willing to give what it takes to be different and make comments like this one 😂.
Also, one individual with a too different idea is either labeled crazy (Eminescu), or brushed away (killed usually). You know, like: Jesus, J.F.K., John Lennon, 2Pac, etc. . You need a mild different idea and quite a few followers.
Do you know how much time consuming is to questions everything, and there's a lot of down sides of this. Most of the great philosophers went crazy because of doing just that 😁.
I don't even go on parenting field, don't need flags now 😅.
Being different require a lot of self confidence as well. A lot of it.
Again, nice post, food for thoughts 😃.
The examples I gave were just that: examples. I can see how it was a power driven thing, but the idea behind them were widely accepted. To use the same issue I used in the post, even women used to consider themselves inferior and incapable to have a job or own property, because that was the general belief.
Even the unimportant things are changed through minority influence. Think fashion or styles. New ones come up when a few people decide to be different, to wear weird clothes or do their hair in a special way. Then more and more people join in until it becomes a trend.
Thank you so much for your comment! :)
Life is like driving a bicycle. To maintain balance, you must move forward,
We read the world badly, and then we say that it deceives us.
The world is not threatened by bad people but by those who allow evil.
You got a 5.42% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @corina!
Want to promote your posts too? Check out the Steem Bot Tracker website for more info. If you would like to support the development of @postpromoter and the bot tracker please vote for @yabapmatt for witness!
Good evening it is a nice post. It is perfect to improve ourselves. Thank you for sharing this kind of stuff!
Very true yeah
Corina,
Great write up. I feel like everything I do bucks a trend. I own an electric car in a country where we have almost no incentive to do so, follow a vegan lifestyle and invest in alternative currencies.
Resisting the need to be accepted has always been easy for me. I've done everything against the trend over the years that I'm used to losing "friends".
Keep up the inspired writing. It was lovely to read and to continue being a speed bump in everyone else's cushy lives 😋😉.
Take care.
Nick
Edit: I'd like to hear about your experience and reasoning behind the use of voting bots. I noticed you spent over 100sbd on bots for this article.
Thank you so much for your comment and well done to you for the way you've chosen to live your life!
The reason I use bots (and lose my money) is because on the way Steemit works at the moment, it's very hard to get seen otherwise.
When I first joined, there were lots of whales about voting good quality content. Now all their SP is delegated to bots. Even the dolphins have their voting power and SP delegated, so no matter how good your writing, unless you join in the party and pay up, you get lost. It's sad and I'm hoping things might change and become a little easier for everyone to grow on here, but for that we need people with a lot of SP doing actual curation work.
Excellent post! I think the answers, the big ones, are inside. "I am who I am"
Unfortunately, crowd mentality still rules. I hope someday soon humans can evolve to choosing on their own...
I love this article and the attitude it has. As a parent I am always trying to instill this in my kids: be the best you can; don't worry about the judgement of others; so long as it doesn't hurt others you can go with it; make your own decisions; no one has to agree with you; you can change the world just one person at a time....
As expats we have the advantage that we will never be the same as those around us, I think this has helped my kids to look for their own paths and nurture their own ideas.
Corina, I loved your post, each of the points call us to reflection to be really authentic and this will make us happier (at least with ourselves).
I believe that the world will begin to change when we begin to change inwardly, when we do introspection, when we look at the world from another point of view and not only because of the conditioning or stereotypes to which we have become accustomed.
applause, applause for your post
Basically humanis come from the sake kind that distinguishes itu ia because of the location of the region and it has the reason and benefits for all the skin race itselft in my opinion
Very nice post
