"If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilisation. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost—he becomes just an unit in unreason.”― Zuleika Dobson
During a
leadership camp in high school, we had a director who liked to perform psychological
tricks on us for either entertainment, but more often to teach us a lesson. One time when we sat in a large room filled with rows of seats, he sat upfront in
the middle of the room. He told everyone to turn around and greet the person behind you on the count of three.
I remember
thinking to myself, “This is dumb. If we all turn around at the same time, then
no one is going to be able to greet anyone.” Yet, by the time he counted to three,
there I was turning around and greeting someone’s back.
We all got
a good laugh at it. His point turned out to be to think logically. He said we
should always listen to those above us, except for when we think what they’re
commanding is unethical or harmful. He told us to not turn off our brains.
However, we
turn off our brains and agency under three conditions: fear, authority, and
conformity. In times of a pandemic, fear is high and we are all frantically
looking for an authority to turn to, while still trying to feel connected to
others.
Authority
When I started coaching middle school students
when I was 18, I learned very quickly how impressionable they were, even though
I was only a few years older than them. It didn’t take long for me to realize
that I would hear my off-handed remarks replicated by their mouths later.
That’s when I learned I had to be very careful with what I said around them and
that I couldn’t talk freely. I was their coach. I was an authority figure to
them. What I said had an effect on them.
Needless to
say, adults are not as impressionable as children, but they don’t lose their
inherent ability to listen to authority. In the famous Milgram Shock experiment,
psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to test how obedient Americans were
compared to Nazis, who often pleaded obedience as to why they committed so many
atrocious crimes.
In the
experiment, a group of volunteers thought they were participating in a learning
experiment. They were paired with another participant, who was secretly an
actor, and then would draw straws (which was rigged) so one would be the “teacher”
and the other the “learner.” The voluntary participant would always be the
teacher.
The teacher
was required to administer shocks to the learner for every question he got wrong, and were to gradually increase the voltage. The learner would
pretend to get shocked and exclaim things like, “Let me out of here!” “My heart’s
bothering me,” “You have no right to keep me here,” and screaming. Listening to
the clips, the learner definitely sounds very distressed whenever he gets shocked.
Whenever
the teacher didn’t want to continue, the experimenter in the room, dressed in a
grey lab coat and also an actor, would gently prod phrases such as, “Please
continue. The experiment requires you to continue. It is absolutely essential
that you continue. You have no other choice but to continue.”
The results
were: “65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the
highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.” 450
volts would’ve killed the learner. Milgram concluded: “Ordinary people are
likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of
killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are
brought up. People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize
their authority as morally right and/or legally based.”
Milgram
explained his results through his agency theory. In social situations, we are
either in an autonomous state, directing and taking responsibility of our own
actions, or an agentic state, in which others direct our actions and thus they have responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
For someone
to enter the agentic state, Milgram says two conditions must be met:
- The
person giving the orders is perceived as being qualified to direct other
people’s behavior. That is, they are seen as legitimate.
- The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens.
This is
shown most clearly in Milgram’s variation of this experiment – “For example,
when participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own
actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey. In contrast, many
participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he
would take responsibility.”
In the
variations, obedience dropped under conditions such as an “ordinary member of
the public” dressed in casual clothing prodding the teacher instead of the
experimenter in the lab coat. Obedience also dropped when they couldn’t see the
experimenter, and when the location was moved from the prestigious Yale offices
to run down ones.
This shows
we are more obedient to those who look like there are in authority and are in a
trusted place of authority. We are often obedient to authority figures who tell
us to do something, even if it goes against our ethical values or logic.
Which is
why Maryland received hundreds of calls “from residents asking about the
effectiveness of ingesting disinfectants to treat coronavirus after President
Donald Trump dangerously suggested that it could be a possible treatment for
the deadly virus.” Similarly, Illinois and Michigan also saw an increase in
calls to poison control about the president’s remarks.
Listening
to authority can be good or bad depending on who we’re listening to. Many
people have chosen to listen to doctors and experts about the coronavirus and
how we should be handling it. However, when two doctors from Bakersfield went
viral after “debunking” the coronavirus, many listened to them to.
I think
that during times of fear, we are especially vulnerable to wanting to listen to
anyone who we think has credible information or has our best interests in mind.
We may not always do this logically, but as mentioned, listening to authority
is no time to turn off your brain. We should be questioning and evaluating
everything we hear and not basing decisions off of fear, especially since there
is so much misinformation out there.
In Ed Yong’s
article in the Atlantic, “Why is the Coronavirus So Confusing,” he says, “We hunger for information, but lack the
know-how to evaluate it or the sources that provide it.” He goes on to quote Zeynep
Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, “This is the
epistemological crisis of the moment: There’s a lot of expertise around, but
fewer tools than ever to distinguish it from everything else.”
We want to
listen to experts, but we are simply overwhelmed by information that seems to
contradict itself and even change day by day. I think the best explanation Yong
provided is that in academia, when new information is found, it is debated and
reviewed by peers. There is often an oscillation of information as peers decide
if the tools they used to come to those conclusions were sound and accurate,
and if their data and results fits into the bigger picture. This is normal. The
debates and information is usually only seen by the academic community.
However,
now the world is taking in all this oscillating information as well without
knowing how the process works. We are ready to believe every new piece of
information not understanding it needs to be evaluated by others first. Yong’s
point is, “that individual pieces of research are extremely unlikely to
single-handedly upend what we know about COVID-19.”
Not
understanding the process of academia puts everyone in a dangerous position of
grasping what every “expert” or even self-proclaimed experts seem to say. If we
are programmed to listen to authority, and two doctors come out saying the
coronavirus is just like the flu, then I understand why so many people would
want to believe it, especially since it’s also what they want to believe.
However, this information doesn’t fall in line what most other experts are
saying and thousands of doctors are experiencing.
At the end
of the day, listening to authority is best useful when we are still using our
own logic. When authorities say washing your hands and social distancing will
help slow the spread of the virus, and this message is being repeated by many
authorities all around the world and proven to be effective, then we know it’s
information we can trust. If we’ve gone our entire lives knowing that ingesting
disinfectant and bleach is deadly, then it’s safe to believe that it is still
deadly despite the offhanded remarks of a single person in charge of an entire country.
Because
this is a pandemic that has become about so much more than health, Yong has
some advice:
“But
pandemics demand both depth and breadth of expertise. To work out if widespread
testing is crucial for controlling the pandemic, listen to public-health
experts; to work out if widespread testing is possible, listen to supply-chain
experts. To determine if antibody tests can tell people if they’re immune to
the coronavirus, listen to immunologists; to determine if such testing is
actually a good idea, listen to ethicists, anthropologists, and historians of
science. No one knows it all, and those who claim to should not be trusted.”
Conformity
Not only do
we listen to authority, but we also listen to groups. That’s why I like to call
the vast majority of people – sheeple (a term I did not make up, but is very
fun to use).
In the
article, “Herd Mentality Explained,” Rick Nauert, PhD says that research has
shown the vast majority of us make decisions based off the actions of others.
In a series of experiments, groups of people were asked to walk around a large
hall. A select few were given a direction to walk, and it didn’t take long for
everyone else to follow them even though there were no verbal cues and physical
gestures to guide them.
They
conducted this experiment with different sized groups and varied the amount of
informed individuals, and found that, “it takes a minority of just five percent
to influence a crowd’s direction — and that the other 95 percent follow without
realizing it.”
In “TheFear and Pain of Going Against the Crowd,” David Zuckerman states another study
that exemplifies how people conform. Neuroscientists conducted an experiment in
which participants took a test in different settings, individually and in a
group. In the first setting, participants took the test by themselves and
correctly answered 90% of the questions. “When participants could see the
answers given by other people in the group, however, only 59 percent of
questions were answered correctly — a rate that it is statistically equivalent
to flipping a coin to make the decision.”
Brains
scans performed on participants during the test found that once the group had
chosen an answer, “there was a decrease in activity in the parts of the brain
that are associated with logical thinking.” They literally stopped thinking, or
at least significantly thought less about the right answer.
When
following the spread of information on social media platforms, this has proven
to be incredibly dangerous. Yong points out, “On Twitter, false information
spreads further than true information, and at six times the speed.” Renée DiResta
of Stanford, who studies how narratives spread online, says, “this is not just
a problem of the internet… For a lot of people, what is true is what the people
I’ve chosen to trust in my community say is true.” This means that liberal and
conservative Americans see this pandemic differently.
Interestingly
enough, in a 2014 study conducted by Chapman University, even the fears of Democrats
and Republicans differed – “Democrats were most likely to be worried about
personal safety, pollution, and man-made disasters. Republicans, meanwhile, had
the highest levels of fear about the government, immigrants, and “today’s
youth.”” I think we still seeing these leanings during this pandemic.
DiResta
says that in a disaster people share information “to be useful to their community.”
So, the intention isn’t to spread misinformation and fear, but it’s definitely
a consequence. Yong says, “Since the pandemic began, scientists have published
more than 7,500 papers on COVID-19.” Everyone has been frantically trying to
find and share information that they think will be the most useful to the
community and world.
Despite all
these publications and findings, Carl Bergstrom, an epidemiologist and a
sociologist of science at the University of Washington, says there have not be “a
lot of huge plot twists” in what we know and have been learning about Covid-19.
Consider that. So much information is shared that it seems we’re learning
something new every day, when in reality, we’ve only solidly learned a few
small things.
So every
time you hear a new piece of information about this virus, consider the process
of academia and how information must be weighed and debated. Consider that just
because one group of people says one thing, and that group aligns with what you
believe or want, it may not be the most accurate information.
We have
leanings to want to believe some information versus others. But whether Democrat
or Republican, liberal or conservative, following this news network or another,
business owner or healthcare worker, working or unemployed, student or parent,
we are all affected by this pandemic. We all want the best solutions and it
will take a lot of creative expert minds to find what’s best for everyone.
And if you
are inclined to believe that you have your own independent mind and are not
just a follower, or part of the sheeple, statistically, that just isn’t
probable. With that being said, during times of crisis, the sheeple mentality
can be used for good or bad, but this, I believe, is directed by our fear.
Fear
One of the prominent
feelings going around is that many of us are afraid and for different reasons.
We are fearful for our health and the health of our loved ones. We are fearful
about job instability and financial hardship. There are even those fearful
about the government and liberty restrictions. Collectively, I believe most
people in America, if not the world, are afraid of something right now.
Nadya Dich,
Ph.D., addresses fear during a pandemic in her article, “What Fear and Anxiety Can and Cannot Do for (and With) You.” She explains fear and anxiety are part
of a stress response meant to keep us safe. She says, “It mobilizes our energy,
both mental and physical, so we can either escape from the threat or cope with
it. We think and react faster, are more alert and awake, and engage in
behaviors that will keep us safe.”
So, fear is useful, until it’s
not. Past a point, “the surge of stress hormones that accompanies intense
anxiety and fear diminishes our access to higher-level cognitive processes.
When the brain is on stress hormones, seeing perspective, out-of-the-box
thinking, and creativity may be temporarily unavailable to us, impairing our
abilities to solve problems and make decisions.”
I find it
interesting that the same emotion that activates brain activity also diminishes
it when we have too much of it. It’s safe to say that during a prolonged pandemic
with increasing and new fears arising, we have too much fear.
In “The Psychology of Irrational Fear,” written during the time of Ebola, Olga Khazan
says we fear the unexpected or unknown, when it’s “too close to home” or
affects us personally, and even are more afraid of outside occurrences when we feel
physically vulnerable. Fear can lead us to avoid people and places simply
because others are avoiding them. However, the feeling of loss of control is
likely to bring out our worst phobias.
Madhukar
Trivedi, chair of the University of Texas-Southwestern’s Mental Health
Department, says, “people are more afraid of flying than of driving cars
because “in a car, at least I know when to brake. In a plane, I have no
control.”” During times like
these, I think fear of loss of control is what drives us predominately.
We fear
spreading the virus and infecting others, so many of us have chosen to adhere
to stay at home orders and stay home, which I believe is a good thing. Fear is,
afterall, meant for our survival.
On the
other hand, having places of business close down is outside a business owner’s
control, as well as customer participation and the overall economy. With the
closing of businesses, finances are much less in their control, which means
security and stability, and not knowing how to feed their families is not in their
control. This is when panic sets in.
In Karen
Thomspon Walker’s Ted Talk, “What Fear Can Teach Us,” she explains what role
the imagination plays in fear. She tells the story of a real life event in
1819 about 20 American sailors who were shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean 3,000 miles off
the coast of Chile. They found themselves with three options.
With
limited food and navigational equipment on their lifeboats, they could go to
the nearest island 1,000 miles away, which was rumored to have cannibals.
Another option was Hawaii, but the crew feared the storms that happened during
that season. Their last option was to sail 1,500 miles south in hopes of
reaching winds that would push them to the coast. That journey would be the
longest and their food supple was sure not to last.
They
eventually decided on the longest journey, and when the crew was finally found
by another ship, half the crew had died, the rest were starving, and some
members had resorted to cannibalism.
Walker
explains logically, going to the closest island would’ve led to the highest
chance of survival, but instead they chose the most illogical choice. She
explains, “Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the
most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to
picture.”
Whatever is
most visceral to us is easiest to fear most. In this way, fear is very
illogical. It’s why most people fear shark attacks more than car crashes,
even though the latter is far more likely. Just as that 1819 crew could most
vividly picture being eaten by cannibals more than starvation.
What we can
imagine vividly and see right in front of us seems like a more real threat that
something possibly far away or invisible. This is similar to how during this
pandemic, there are those who believe it’s a hoax, or that lockdowns have been overexaggerated.
Tufekci says, “There are two lessons one can learn from an averted disaster. One
is: That was exaggerated. The other is: That was close.”
Yong says, “Last
month, a team at Imperial College London released a model that said the
coronavirus pandemic could kill 2.2 million Americans if left unchecked. So it
was checked… The death toll is still climbing, but seems unlikely to hit the
worst-case 2.2 million ceiling. That was close. Or, as some pundits are already
claiming, that was exaggerated.”
However
accurate the models are or not, the point still lies that much death has been
averted. Yong goes on to say, “I can still read accounts of people less
lucky—those who have lost, and those who have been lost. But I cannot read
about the losses that never occurred, because they were averted. Prevention may
be better than cure, but it is also less visceral.”
Prevention
and averted death is not something we can tangibly see. What’s right in front
us is massive unemployment, financial insecurity, and many other problems
caused by the lockdown. Thus, these fears have been looming bigger to many
people.
I strongly
believe that had we done nothing, and our healthcare systems got overwhelmed
and hundreds of thousands died, there would instead be protests for the
government to step in and do something.
There has
also been the other argument of who the virus primarily affects, and for those
who don’t fall into the category, they think they have less to fear. For those
people, fear of the economy failing is much greater than fear of the virus.
Combine
these fears from all ends of the spectrum with the fact that heightened fear
impairs our thinking, then it completely makes sense why protestors would
huddle in groups without wearing masks. Protesting is a liberty granted to us. Protesting
without the measures that have been provided to us is just plain stupid.
To combat
fear, Walker says we need the coolness of judgment of a scientist. The fact is
that this pandemic has affected all of us, but not all of us in the same way. A
suffering business owner has to weigh the risks of his own livelihood, as well
as his employees, with the health of all those who his business comes into contact
with. A nurse must weigh the danger of infecting his/her family by not coming
home. Teachers and parents must weigh the education of students.
There is no
one size fits all solution. Everyone is scared of something and acting from
that fear. If a struggling business owner talked to someone who has lost a
loved one to the virus, I wonder what kind of insights would be gained.
Conclusion
When we listen to authority, we
turn off our agency and critical thinking skills. When we conform to the herd,
we let others decide for us. When fear dominates our life, logic goes out the
window. These reactions are justified and normal, but this is not a time to
turn off your brain.
I still
often think back to that leadership camp in high school. A room filled with at
least 50 students and every single of one of them turned around to greet
someone’s back. It’s silly really. Especially since I had thought it was dumb
and followed anyway. Not only was I being given an order, but everyone else was
turning around too.
I’m not a high school student anymore, and I doubt anyone
who reads this is. What would have happened if I had stopped, questioned a
little longer, and followed my own logic? What would happen if the world did
that?
Sources:
Maryland Receives "Hundreds" of Calls
Calls to Poison Control Spike
The Fear and Pain of Going Against the Crowd
The Milgram Shock Experiment
What Fear and Anxiety Can (And Cannot) Do For You
The Psychology of Irrational Fear
Why the Coronavirus is So Confusing
Herd Mentality Explained
What Fear Can Teach Us
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