Hola mi Gente,
Yesterday, I came across the following headline:
More than 2 MILLION of Hillary Clinton's Twitter followers are fake or never tweet -- and she's already under fire for “buying” fake Facebook fans
The article went on to document how two different online audit tools show that no more than 44% of Hillary's 3.6 million Twitter fans are real people who participate in the platform. In addition, the presidential candidate is fending off accusations that her Facebook page is full of fake “likes” and that her Facebook fan base includes more people from Baghdad, Iraq than any US city. When she was secretary of state, the article states, her agency paid $630,000 to bulk up its Facebook likes, but pledged to stop after she left.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the neoliberal politician's career and her tendency toward fabrication (see here). What is interesting here is Hillary’s use of the marketing strategy of social proof in order to dupe the electorate...
* * *
Social Proof & the Myth of the Cold Society
Where all think alike, no one thinks very
much.
-- Walter Lippman
There
is a powerful weapon of influence called social proof. The principle of social proof (sometimes called the bystander effect)
is that one way we determine what is correct is to find out what other
people think is correct. This principle applies especially to the way we decide
what makes up correct behavior. We view a behavior more correct to the degree
that we see others performing it. Whether the issue is what to do with a piece
of garbage, how fast to drive on a highway, how to use a utensil at a formal
dinner party, or even what to
buy, the actions of those around us will be important in determining
our behavior.
Of
course, in the internet world, we’re all free thinkers and the principle of
social proof doesn’t apply to you. Hold on, I need to sneeze…
ACHOOOOBULLSHIT!
Thank
you.
Where
was I? Yes, social proof.
Perhaps
you’ve waited on a long line to see a movie? Or maybe you came upon a crowd
looking up toward the sky. You looked up too, right? Part of it was curiosity,
but you did that mostly because of the principle of social proof. The tendency
to see an action as more appropriate when
others are doing it is quite normal and it often serves a good purpose. As
a rule, we make fewer mistakes when acting in agreement with evidence than when
we act contrary to it. Usually, when many people are doing something, it is the
right thing to do. However, this is both a strength and a weakness. While
social proof offers a shortcut for determining correct behavior, at the same
time it makes us vulnerable to those who would exploit it for profit or evil.
Our
tendency to see an action more appropriate if others are doing it is exploited
in a number of settings. Bartenders often “prime” their tip jars with a few
dollars bills to give the impression of tips left by previous customers. Church
ushers do the same with their collection baskets. Evangelical preachers are
known to seed their audience with co-conspirators who are rehearsed to come at
a specific time to give witness and donations. In one interesting experiment,
several researchers infiltrated crusader Billy Graham’s organization and
reported on such tactics. “By the time Graham arrives in town and makes his
altar call, an army of six thousand wait with instructions on when to come
forward to create the impression of a spontaneous mass outpouring.”
Advertisers
love to tell us their product is the “fastest-growing” or “largest-selling”
because they don’t have to convince us directly about the worth of their
product.
However,
principles of influence and persuasion work best under certain conditions.
Social proof works best at a time of uncertainty, when we are unsure of
ourselves, when the situation is unclear. It is during these times that we rely
more on others and see their reactions as correct. But in relying on examining
the reactions of others, we overlook one simple fact: that those people are
probably looking for social evidence also. This phenomenon helps to explain
what has been called a national disgrace: the failure of entire groups of
bystanders to aid victims in excruciating need of help.
Nowhere
is this better illustrated as in the case of the
murder Catherine Genovese in March 1964. The details of Ms. Genovese’s
death are gruesome and beg an explanation. Catherine Genovese, known to her
friends and family as Kitty, had not experienced a quick, muted death. It had
been a long, loud, tortured, public event. According to reports of her
death at the time, her assailant had chased and attacked her in the street
three times over a thirty-five minute period before his knife finally silenced
her cries for help. Unbelievably, thirty-eight of her neighbors watched the
events of her death unfold from the safety of their apartment windows without
so much as lifting a finger to call the police. (Years later, studies showed
that many of the newspaper accounts wildly
exaggerated the incident. Neighbors did
try to help and one even cradled Kitty Genovese in her arms -- at great
personal risk -- as she lay dying, for example).
The
series of stories that arose from this incident shocked a nation. Eventually,
the horrific slaying of Catherine Genovese would come to symbolize both an
uncaring an apathetic New York City and our society in general. How could
thirty-eight “good people” fail to act under those circumstances? No one could
understand it. Even the witnesses themselves were confused. “I don’t know,”
they answered. “I just don’t know.” A few offered weak excuses, explaining that
they were “afraid” or “did not want to get involved.” But these reasons don’t
stand scrutiny. An anonymous call could have saved Catherine Genovese without
putting the witness in danger. It wasn’t fear or apathy that was at work, there
was something else going on that even they could not understand.
But
confusion doesn’t sell newspapers or TV commercials, so the media emphasized
the only explanation available at the time: the witnesses, no different from
many of us, hadn’t cared enough to get involved. We had become a nation of
selfish insensitive people. Modern life, especially life in New York City, had
hardened us. We were becoming “The Cold Society,” unfeeling, and indifferent to
the suffering of others.
The
Genovese story grew. In addition to a book by A.M. Rosenthal,
it also became the focus of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, several
TV documentaries, and even an Off-Broadway
play. It also attracted the interest of two new York-based social
psychologists, Bibb Latane and John Darley and they came up with the most
unlikely explanation of all -- it was that thirty-eight witnesses were
present. In contrast to earlier reports emphasizing that no action was
taken, even though thirty-eight witnesses had looked on, Latane
and Darley suggested that no one had helped precisely because there
were so many observers.
They
offered two interesting reasons for why a bystander would not respond to an
emergency when there are other bystanders present. The first reason is fairly
intuitive. With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility
of each individual is lessened: “Perhaps someone else will give a call for
help, perhaps someone already has.” So with everyone thinking someone else will
help, no one does.
The
second reason is more interesting, it is founded on the principle of social
proof. Very often an emergency is not obviously an emergency. Is the man lying
in the alley a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping it off? Are the sharp
sounds from the street gunshots or a truck backfiring? Is the argument next
door an assault needing a call to the police or an especially loud marital spat
where intervention would be inappropriate and uncalled for? What is going on?
In
times of uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of
others for cues for appropriate behavior. We try to surmise, from the reactions
of others whether the event is an emergency. What is easy to forget is that
everybody else observing the event is likely to be looking for social proof
too. Therefore, everybody is likely to see everyone else looking unruffled and
failing to act. By the principle of social proof, the event will be interpreted
as a non-emergency. This state of collective non-action, called pluralistic ignorance by social
psychologists, is a state “in which each person decides that since nobody is
concerned, nothing is wrong. Meanwhile, the danger may be mounting to the point
where a single individual, influenced by the seeming calm of others, would
react.”
The
upshot of Latane’s and Darly’s research is that someone in need of aid stands a
better chance of survival if a single bystander, rather than a crowd, is
present. To test this unusual supposition, Darley, Latane, and some of their
students performed a series of research that produced clear findings. The basic
set up was to stage emergency events that were observed either by a single
individual or by a group of people. They then recorded the number of times the
emergency victim received help.
In
the first experiment, a New York college student who appeared to be having an
epileptic seizure received help 85 per cent of the time when there was a single
bystander present but only 31 per cent of the time with five bystanders
present.
After
more than decades of subsequent research the overly simplistic argument that
ours is “The cold society” where no one cares for suffering others is difficult
to maintain -- at least if you’re an intelligent person.
First,
once witnesses are convinced that emergency exists, aid is very likely. Under
these conditions, the numbers of bystanders who either get involved or call for
help is clearly very high. The situation becomes different when, as in many
cases, bystanders cannot be sure that the event they are witnessing is an
emergency. The fact is that the same circumstances that reduce the chances of
aid exist in city life. However, it doesn’t follow that we have become a nation
of callous, unfeeling people.
My
name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…
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