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Writer's picturenevalamoutopoulou

The phenomenon of the herd and the strength of the mass ..


We live in a time when it is difficult to act as we would like or as we used to, since the threat of a pandemic forces us to act in accordance with the whole. Individuality is beneficial to serve the whole in order to protect ourselves and at the same time to protect those around us. In a situation where the majority is in the light of events, it may be timely to study how we are influenced in our decisions by the behavior and actions of other people. According to research from the University of Leeds, humans, just like sheep and birds, subconsciously follow a minority of people. In fact, the researchers found that it takes only 5% of a minority to influence the direction of the crowd, while the remaining 95% follow without even realizing it. According to social psychology, that is, the "scientific study of the way we think, influence, and relate to one another," it seems that we probably do not have much control over our thoughts and behavior. But how do teams affect us? It is believed that people with similar thinking in a group reinforce each other's views. Group consensus seems to provoke a change in attitudes in which individuals are likely to adopt more extreme positions. When we see our uncertain views reflected back to us, our beliefs are strengthened. In other words, our beliefs are strengthened when we are close to other people who have similar views to us. We think that if other people do, then that's right. According to Julia Coultas, a researcher at the University of Essex, an important adaptive behavior for a person in a group is to copy the behavior of the majority. A conformist attitude would facilitate acceptance by the rest of the group and copying the behavior of the majority would give more chances of survival. To find out what is right, we look at what others are doing. Let us also not forget that humans as social beings have survived through the centuries forming groups. The union affected our psychology. Copying the behavior of many helped our ancestors survive in an uncertain and hostile environment. I must nevertheless admit that when individuality is lost within the collective, feelings of confinement and deprivation of liberty are created. When mass hysteria does not allow room for breath and causes only fear and insecurity, unfortunately we will experience extreme events, we will see violent behaviors and a world disoriented in essence ..



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