The Social Team: the Quality of the Society in which We Live Depends on the Human Interactions We Are Able to Create between Us

Our business interactions are marked either by the pursuit of profit or by the satisfaction of the consumers. Politics is a race for power. But the majority of our life takes place in an other dimension, that does not obey either the laws of economics nor the ones of politics: the one of social relations, where the motivating factor is the acceptance of the group.

The consent of our similar, of our peers, gives us an identity and a status. It is am immense force, which tends to shape our behavior. In its most trivial form we call it conformism: a word that commonly has a negative connotation. Brought to its extreme it produces the herd effect: psychological or physical violence on the weaker ones. Nevertheless there are positive connotations, and we are so involved with them that we do not realize it any more.

In civil countries, the ones in which we admire the discipline, the legality, the civility, all these virtuous behaviors are present because there is a powerful civic conformism. More than the fear of legal reprehension it is the judgment of the neighbors that induces these people to pay taxes and respect the laws. So many atheists dedicate themselves to philanthropic activities, not with the goal of a place in paradise but because it feels right, because it is the behavior praised by their peers.

In a group of soldiers at the front, the approval of their mates can propel acts of heroism much more than the pursuit of praise of their superior. Vice versa if in a group of adolescents the idea that who has good grades is a nerd spreads, scholastic success becomes a stigma and conformism propels negligence towards studying.

Is there a way to channel this energy in a positive direction? The pressure of the peers is the theme that impassions a great American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Tina Rosenberg. She has narrated to the readers of the New York Times magazine and of other journals the democratic revolutions in China, Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine; she has explored the poorest villages of India and  angladesh; she has lived in South African communities decimated by AIDS. In her last book Join The Club she tries to distill from her experience some lessons specifically on the theme of social pressure as a force that has the power to change every one of us and therefore the course of the events.

An example given by Mrs. Rosenberg concerns adolescents and their relationship with smoking. The campaigns against smoking that leveraged on cancer and the fear of death had almost no effect on teenagers, who have an unconscious tendency to believe they are immortal. Everything changed when some innovative advertisers promoted a different type of message: the great tobacco companies are all liars, they hide the truth about what they are selling, they want to F*** you. In the teenage groups targeted by this message a desire of rebellion against Philip Morris and others was generated. Quitting smoking became cool, it became the right thing to do.

A very different example that the author and journalist gives us is taken from her experiences in Jamkhed, a small and impoverished town in western India, and it regards women belonging to the lowest Hindu social caste. A training program aimed at transforming them into nurses assigned to the social hygiene service has deeply improved their self-esteem. Through their new role at the service of the community and thanks to the satisfaction of helping their neighbors, the women of Jamkhed have swept away millenary barriers.

The lesson of Tina Rosenberg is that the quality of the society in which we live is not the result of laws, of governments, or of the leaders that govern our society, but instead it depends mostly on community factors, on the positive conformism that generates trust, honesty, responsibility and solidarity.