Lately, I have taken more interest in human interactions and their several dynamics — more specifically, the effect of our day-to-day interactions on our actions, beliefs, and overall personalities.

Admit it or not, we are all constantly being influenced by our environment — oftentimes, more than we influence it ourselves. Every interaction we have with the people —and space— around us leaves us for better or for worse, relative to our preceding state. These environmental imprints are often so subtle.

It is common to believe that our thoughts and actions are original in themselves, but a closer look would reveal that we reflect our surroundings in more ways than we think.

The Science of Conformity

My little experience with researching different topics over time has made me realize that almost everything relating to human behaviour has a scientific explanation. And although I’m not too enthusiastic about the scientific aspects of things, it is worth referencing for the sake of clarity.

It is no new knowledge that humans are primarily social beings. The social nature of the species has a thing or two to do with the innate quest for survival. A part of our brains registers increased safety in the presence of group assurance. If you read my “Storytime” post from 2 weeks ago, you’ll see this at play in my younger self.

Several social experiments have revealed the prevalent and subconscious nature of the herd mentality. One of the most popular of such experiments is the Asch Experiment.

The Asch Experiment

Psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments in a bid to study the level of conformity of individuals to majority groups. In his experiment, he presented different groups of students with two cards — one with a line drawn on it, and another with three different lines of different lengths, one of which corresponds with the length of the line on the first card.

In the experiments, all but one of the students were actors, and only one participant was genuine. They were asked to identify the line on the second card that corresponds in length to the line on the first card. The actors were instructed to unanimously pick one of the false options, and the genuine participant was to go after them.

The results of the experiments show that most of the genuine participants (about 75%) compromised the obvious and conformed to the opinion of the majority. Further experiments revealed that the tendency to follow popular opinions increased with an increase in the number of actors picking the wrong options.

The participants were questioned afterward, and their reactions varied. Many testified to questioning their guts and their sense of judgement when everyone went with the options that were obviously wrong. They eventually succumbed to their internal battles concluding that if everyone went with the same option, they must be right.

In Solomon Asch’s words, “That intelligent, well-meaning, young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern.”

The Social Programming

I like to consider our minds as a highly programmable computing system of some sort. The environment we find ourselves in inputs several lines of code —a mixture of good codes and bugs in different proportions. The mind then runs these codes and the output becomes our resulting actions or beliefs. Of course, it’s definitely more complicated than this, but on a fundamental level, our interactions leave imprints on our character.

This can pass as a good thing and it can also have negative effects. Understanding and leveraging the concept of environmental influence can be beneficial in making us better versions of ourselves. On the other hand, not paying attention to this subconscious procedure might leave one prone to falling victim to negative influences.

We’re going to place more emphasis on leveraging the power of positive influence. I believe that cultivating our environment to positively impact is paramount to self-development.

Back to the programming analogy, it is probably impossible to do without the codes, but as good programmers, we ought to ensure that the inputs to our minds consist of fewer bugs and more good codes. To achieve this, it’s easier and more effective to focus more on the source of these inputs instead of letting everything into our minds and struggling to debug later.

Circles And Tribes

From observations, the primary sources of these inputs are our associations —physical and virtual alike. Physical associations are more direct in influence. The old saying “show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are” is a cliche that holds true. It is necessary to deliberately edit your associations from time to time, keeping the relationships that positively influence us, and doing away with those that affect us negatively.

Virtual associations are a little bit more tricky. In our current days, we cannot ignore the digital space as it is increasingly gaining more ground in our day-to-day interactions. Virtual associations span across the people and trends we follow, the content we engage with, the music we listen to, the movies we watch. All of these influence us in different ways, thus it is necessary to cultivate a virtual environment that reflects positive vibes.

Virtual associations can also be leveraged in conditions where we do not have the liberty to choose those in our physical environment. For example, we might not be able to pick our classmates and work colleagues, and in situations where they constitute negative influence, it can be scary to think that we are permanently stuck with them. The good news is that with the ease of connectivity that the digital space offers us, we can go on to build –or join– our desired “tribe” online.

Regardless of the nature of the interaction in question –physical or virtual, being intentional with our associations goes a long way in defining what inputs we let into our lives, and these inputs subsequently reflect in our actions, beliefs, and overall demeanor. We might not be able to do without the herd, but we can choose our herd.

To close this off, I’d leave us with the words of a wise King Solomon:

“Whoever spends time with wise people will become wise. But whoever makes friends with fools will suffer.”

Proverbs 13:20 ICB