Bruce Hood - The Self Illusion

How do these differing self-concepts manifest when it comes to ownership? One suggestion, following from Belk’s ‘extended self’ idea, is that the endowment effect is at least partly a function of the tendency to value the self. But not every personal attribute is fixed. Psychologist William Maddux and his colleagues 44first established that the endowment effect was not as strong in East Asians compared to Western students attending Northwestern University. However, in a clever twist Maddux asked the students to either write about themselves or their relationships with other people. This task can shift the self-perspective from being focused on one’s self to one’s relationship with others. When East Asians focused on themselves, they endowed things they owned with greater value, whereas Westerners instructed to write about others showed the opposite – a reduced endowment effect.

Not only do we overvalue our own possessions but we also covet that to which others seem to pay attention. It turns out that when we watch other people looking and smiling at objects we automatically prefer them to objects that have not been looked at. 45These sorts of studies show that, when we come to value things, make choices and exhibit preferences, we can easily be manipulated simply by considering context and our role among others. Being a member of a group generates our self-concept in ways that seem to defy the notion that societies are a collection of individual selves. Rather, our self is a reflection of our extension not only to our possessions, but also to everyone around us.

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How the Tribe Made Me

Did you know that one of the most terrifying experiences people can imagine is speaking in front of other people? When this fear becomes so extreme that it begins to affect how people live their lives, it is known as social anxiety disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association, it is the number one most common anxiety problem and the third most common mental disorder in the United States. More than one in ten of us have social anxiety disorder, which is surprisingly high given that we are such a sociable species. 1Why is this?

The mind that generates our sense of self is a product of a brain that has evolved to become social. But in being social, the self is radically altered by the presence of others and our need to fit in with them. This is such an imperative, that being in a group can be one of the most life-affirming experiences but also one of the greatest anxiety-inducing challenges.

One theory is that other people trigger our emotions reflexively. 2As soon as we are in a crowd we become aroused. The limbic system that controls our behaviour responds automatically to the presence of others. Arguably, this is the basic function of emotions – to motivate social behaviour to either join or avoid others. When people simply look at us we become aroused by the focus of their attention. In one of our studies 3we showed that direct attention from staring eyes triggered increased pupil dilation, which is controlled by the limbic system. This system controls how we interact with others – whether we fight them, flee from them or fornicate with them.

Sometimes, arousal can improve performance. We run faster, cycle faster and basically up our game when others are about. However, this energy can also impair performance when we are not that skilled in the first place. When others look at us, our mouths dry up, our voices tremble and our hands shake – all signs of limbic arousal. These are the butterflies that we get in our stomach, which explains why opening-night nerves are a common experience for actors who are not yet comfortable in their roles. It’s only when we become expert that we can rise to the occasion. 4

However, not all group behaviour leads to increased performance. In a tug of war, teammates expend about half as much energy as when they pull as individuals in a phenomenon known as ‘social loafing’. 5As soon as we blend into the crowd we no longer feel the need to put in as much effort if it is not recognized. It is only if the group appreciates our efforts that we try harder. This need for recognition also explains why groups can become more polarized on issues that would normally generate only moderate views. 6In an effort to gain group approval, individuals adopt increasingly extreme positions that they feel represent the group, which in turn drags the group further towards that position. If you couple that dynamic force with ‘groupthink’, 7the tendency to suspend critical thinking when we are one of many decision-makers so as to try and galvanize the gathering, then it is easy to see how we behave so differently in groups than we would as individuals. It explains why the rise of political extremism requires not only the determination of the few but also the complacency of the many. When we are in large groups, whatever self we believe we have is swamped by others. The illusion is to assume you are more autonomous than you really are.

Suicide Baiting

In January 2010, a distressed woman on a bridge over the M60 motorway in the UK brought the traffic to a four-hour standstill while the police attempted to talk her down. A radio DJ, Steve Penk, thought it would be a funny prank to play Van Halen’s hit track, ‘Jump’, for the frustrated drivers caught up in the drama. 8Moments later, the woman jumped allegedly after hearing the song on a radio turned up by one of the waiting motorists. Luckily, the woman survived her suicide attempt but Penk was unrepentant.

Left to his own devices, the DJ would not have taunted the potential suicide victim unless he thought his clowning would please the listeners. The drivers trapped on the motorway would probably not have normally wished this woman harm either. They were sufficiently removed from the incident that they did not feel any consequences of their actions. This kind of crowd behaviour is known as suicide baiting. Fortunately, it is very rare, probably because most suicides are not public spectacles. However, there are well-documented cases where crowds have urged individuals to kill themselves. How can we understand such behaviour? Conceivably this is not the sort of thing that individual members of a crowd would normally encourage on their own.

One explanation is that groups create deindividuation, a loss of the individual self. An analysis of 166 failed and successful suicide attempts across the US between 1966 and 1979 found that crowds were present in about twenty of them and, of those, half were found to bait or jeer the victim. 9The factors that seemed to link to baiting were larger crowds, the distance between the crowd and the victim, and the cover of night – arguably all factors that lead to greater anonymity.

Anonymity to outsiders appears to be the crucial factor when individuals feel that they are not accountable, which leads to greater antisocial behaviour. Riots, lynching and hooliganism are all believed to be examples of mob mentality that are thought to thrive through the process of deindividuation. 10In contrast, the more that we lose anonymity, the more we conform and behave. In one simple study, researchers placed a picture of a pair of eyes on the wall above a collection tin in the coffee room where members of staff paid for their beverages. 11For the next ten weeks they alternated posting pictures of flowers or watchful eyes above the coffee pot. People were more honest paying for their beverages when the eyes were posted. Just like the self-conscious Halloween children, we are more honest when a mirror is present to reflect our behaviour. When we are made self-conscious we become more accountable. For example, students consider working on an exam paper after time is up as cheating, and yet 71 per cent of them continue to do so if left alone. However, only 7 per cent do so if they are made self-aware by a mirror hanging in the exam room. 12Anything that exposes the self to the scrutiny of others makes us more prosocial. Groups can bring out both the good and bad sides of our self.