‘Political Socialisation’ - Are you a victim?
Personal political opinions - where do they come from and how easy is it to go along with what people around you think?
I saw an interesting show two nights ago on ABC called Exposed - Persuaders …. It looks at ‘the art of persuasion’ and showed an experiment:
* About 8 people are in a room, they are there to take part in an experiment by a psychologist who is doing research on how groups interact.
* The psychologist is actually an actor and they are secretly being filmed.
* One person in the group is ‘a mole’ so to speak, as they are also an actor.
* The ‘psych’ tells the group to put a puzzle together while she is out of the room - they are to time how long it takes and stresses how important it is for her experiment that no one has ever seen/done the puzzle before (the one she has put on the table for them to do.)
* The ‘mole’ tells the group he knows how to do it as soon as the ‘psych’ leaves the room and helps the group put the puzzle together in record time.
* Despite the ‘psych’ asking the group and each person individually if they thought anyone in the group had done the puzzle before, none of the group members initially come forward.
This experiment made me think about the political opinions people hold and why they hold them. As an extreme example the show refers to the Nazi era in Germany and how so many citizens became involved with the Nazi’s and contributed to Hitler’s horrible regime.
I have a (gen y) friend who has (in my opinion) fairly radical, self-centred political opinions and when this person talks to me I wonder how they would fare if they were talking to a group of my friends (who are largely slightly left of centre) at dinner… I think they would be scrutinised for the things they say…
If this person, who is not actually overly interested in politics or current events, has these ‘radical ideas’ I thought to myself, they must get in arguments with people all the time. Most people I know in the gen y category are quite liberal in their thinking and are pretty open minded. But then I realised, this persons group of friends, and to some extent their families seem to hold similar opinions to this friend of mine.
So my point is - How many people would hold/project different opinions if they pulled themselves out of their ‘group’? Is that even possible? I like to think that I make up my mind without really caring what people think of me but I guess deep down everyone is influenced by those around them and what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ will always be, to some extent, determined by those we spend our time with.
Is that why people blog and tweet under alias names? Does anonymity allow for true self expression without fear of being rejected by those around us?
I guess this is why voting is private and anonymous at the polling booth.
I think the only way you can make sure you don’t become ‘politically socialised’ by the people around you is to find a few friends like my ‘radical opinion’ friend and really listen to what they say - really consider what they have to say… (even if you still disagree with what they say), diversity on a personal level is really important. Its like a personal endorsement for a product - sure, there are plently of ads for different products (as there are various sources of information relating to different political opinions) but personal endorsements are far more influential…. (ask anyone in marketing and Im sure they will back me up)
Keeping an open mind and having diverse social interactions and sources of information (similar to seeking a variety of sources of information for an answer to a problem) is crucial to ensuring you don’t fall victim to being politically socialised.
Not such a bad thing to feel like you don’t sit at just one point on the political spectrum across all issues. Nor is it a bad thing to be bold and come out as an alternate point of view against the people around you every now and then…
