BONUS: WHY

Why do people behave against their own best interests?

In this post (also an episode for it), I want to talk about the WHY. I had wanted to talk about this and this article gave me even more motivation to. I highly suggest you read it and support this person’s work.

Why do people who truly believe we should have clean air and water, a living wage, a peaceful existence go against those best interests, freeze and just accept what “is” or go far enough to fight against the things that will give these things to them?

Why do even people who masked and saw masks as a positive and good public health measure not ever wear a mask anymore no matter what the situation?

Why does a person who is in the LGBTQIA+ community argue against their own rights?

Why do people label an entire group of people as one thing (criminal, terrorist, etc)?

There are a number of theories in sociology and psychology that explain the mechanisms behind these WHYS. Combine them together and you pretty much get conservatism but we can also see across all people how they influence what we do/don’t do/how we behave, what we choose to believe.

The first I’ll talk about is Social Identity, the study of the interplay between personal and social identities. We all have social identity. Some of it, we are born into, much of it develops. Our social identity can change over time and it can also get stuck, continuing to only stay connected to and share beliefs and behaviors as the same “group”. Most people develop their social identity by finding or creating spaces/places they feel gives them community, belonging, power, success, self esteem. In this post, I will be talking about it in terms of politics and religion but also in the context of the greater population/communities in which we live.

Many can end up building their entire social identity around one group or belief system. We see this with cults and with religion in many cases. We also see it in politics. While some can have a basic political identity but also have other social identities that don’t align with all of their “group’s” beliefs and therefore, have a more diverse set of beliefs, others may ONLY align with belief systems within that one political identity, even if it goes against their own best interests. This is because of how we get that sense of belonging and acceptance and our inability to allow ourselves to take any changes to mess that up. Individual experiences, traumas, etc also play into this. Social justification theory also comes into play here.

According to system justification theory, people are motivated to believe that the institutions, authorities, and arrangements on which they depend are good, fair, desirable, and legitimate.

Now, “good” “fair” and “legitimate” will be subjective terms here. What one believes is “good” or “fair” will differ from someone else. This, too, is shaped by our social identity. Let’s take MAGA. I truly believe that some percentage of that population of people truly was just sick with the status quo, they may have felt left behind (we do have to acknowledge that politicians and others largely did not give any attention to or care for a lot of people through the middle of the country). No matter how or why they started to want Trump and buy into his rhetoric (yes some was racism/ableism/etc whether internalized or blatantly out there), they built a complete social identity out of it. He became that authority who would be “fair” and do what they needed. They felt connected to others who wanted something “new”, who felt left behind, who felt frustrated with the systems and felt they were being promised change. Let’s be honest, we all, no matter what “side” have seen our systems failing. But how we chose to shape our beliefs about that and who we align with can be very different based on our prior social identities, our experiences, our internal beliefs and much more.

Once they put their full faith in this person who was saying all the things they were convinced they needed and wanted. The conservative propaganda machine has been doing some very strong work for decades, able to convince people to go against their own best interests. But, they had help both from their own policies and actions but also those of others. This is explained well fully in this article but here is a snippet.

Globalization and technological progress have bestowed significant benefits on the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, the benefits and costs are not equally distributed. For those who did not share in the benefits, structural change through globalization and technological change reduced real incomes and eliminated many higher-paying working-class jobs, exacerbating the schism between mainstream elites and the less educated and less skilled, fueling their alienation.

So, with places like Massachusetts and California with a lot of these “elites” and highly educated people who are mainly liberal, it is very easy to convince people that they are the enemy. Add in that this propaganda machine has heavily relied on demonizing democrats and have been very good at making it seem as if it’s actually democratic policies that are hurting these people when it’s actually their own. It’s even easier to do when people are less educated. They also fueled racism with their made up “war on drugs” and all of the immigrant rhetoric. Meanwhile, the democrats were largely ignoring this population of people and not speaking to them at all which only fuels the propaganda they are being fed. It is very similar in the Wellness industry and why they are so closely aligned.

In recent years, Republicans have been skillful in cultivating biases and demonizing their opponents, an adeptness that resonates with individuals of lower economic status. This has enabled Republicans to distract voters from their other policies that run counter to the interests of those who have been dislocated by structural economic change along with those fearful of losing the last remnants of white superiority and privilege. Adeptly, Republicans recognize and exploit class distinctions and the power of biases better than Democrats, enabling Republicans to develop a base that ignores its own socioeconomic interests when going to the polls.self-fulfilling prophecy, process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own confirmation. In a self-fulfilling prophecy an individual’s expectations about another person or entity eventually result in the other person or entity acting in ways that confirm the expectations.

We can then add in some of the mechanisms of the self fulfilling prophecy theory.

A classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the bank failures during the Great Depression. Even banks on strong financial footing sometimes were driven to insolvency by bank runs. Often, if a false rumor started that the bank was insolvent (incapable of covering its deposits), a panic ensued, and depositors wanted to withdraw their money all at once before the bank’s cash ran out. When the bank could not cover all the withdrawals, it actually did become insolvent. Thus, an originally false belief led to its own fulfillment. Brittanica

There are many examples through history of this phenomenon. It doesn’t necessarily work every time on it’s own but then you add in other belief systems and behaviors of populations. So, say, a person is born into or falls into conservative beliefs. They are constantly told that non white people and “elites” are the enemy in various ways. They also hold strong Christian beliefs that get anchored in. They then go further right as they are fed more and more propaganda. They are poor, rely on medicare and social programs, need more education and higher wages. However, they have been convinced that it’s not the people that are feeding them the propaganda (it is) making that harder or impossible but instead, the fault of other “groups” of people. They also are fighting against something not even there. We see this with white people who are afraid to “lose their advantages and supremacy”. They don’t even realize (many) that is what is happening. It’s just another part of the rhetoric they are being fed about non white people and how they are “taking their jobs”, “committing crime”, etc. Women in these spaces with these social identies have been completey indoctinate to believe that being “less than” through religious and political beliefs is best and fight against their own rights. We also see this in much lesser numbers of LGBTQIA+ and Non White MAGAs/Conservatives.

We can also take into account Systems Justification Theory to explain this.

According to system justification theory, people desire not only to hold favorable attitudes about themselves (ego-justification) and the groups to which they belong (group-justification), but also to hold positive attitudes about the overarching social structure in which they are entwined and find themselves obligated to (system-justification). This system-justifying motive sometimes produces the phenomenon known as out-group favoritism, an acceptance of inferiority among low-status groups and a positive image of relatively higher status groups. Thus, the notion that individuals are simultaneously supporters and victims of the system-instilled norms is a central idea in system justification theory. Additionally, the passive ease of supporting the current structure, when compared to the potential price (material, social, psychological) of acting out against the status quo, leads to a shared environment in which the existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred. Alternatives to the status quo tend to be disparaged, and inequality tends to perpetuate.

If one considers oneself a member of a higher social status group (economic standing, race, gender) he or she will hold favorable stereotypes about their group and less positive ones toward lower-status outgroups.

Now, let’s briefly talk about how even those who are not conservative can go against the best interests of themselves and those around them due to these theories and concepts as well.

When it comes to Covid and masking, most non conservative people did what was asked for public health. They supported masking and did it. They got at least the first vaccine. However, at some point, most stopped doing these things even when it came to higher risk situations such as in hospitals, in indoor packed spaces, they stopped getting yearly shots. They fully knew that masks. and shots were beneficial to themselves and others and yet, they 100% stopped them. This can be a number of factors. One, we have to acknowledge the trauma and mental factors that going through a pandemic caused. Masks and vaccines also became so divisive and people made it about so many other things then what should have been. Plenty of people here and in other places have used masks for public health in various ways. But, we made it a “bad” thing. People, due to social identity, struggle to do a ting that may be met with anger or tension. Another factor is the “not me” belief where something like dying or getting very sick with Covid or post viral illness sounds so scary that people will literally just decide it won’t be them. We also know from above, that social identity and belonging is a huge influencer. So, when people see others largely unmasked, they want to “fit in”. Even someone who may feel they want to wear a mask suddenly doesn’t. Some of this can also be blamed on messaging. The messaging around what Covid can actually do to people and WHY we take public health measures was shit. While this was an opportunity to create a culture where

• people wear masks when they are having any symptoms to not get others sick,

• make masks, vaccines and public health in general a more common thing rather than keep our more individualist ways

• we highlight ableism and just how many truly need others to help protect them in so many spaces

WE failed and we continue to fail in the messaging about just how many have been disabled from this, how many really need the greater community’s help to survive and just how much community care is important.

One last topic. I shard this video on my Tiktok. I try to explain why people stay silent, don’t take action and feel helpless in times like we are in but how that is how the system was made and until we realize that, we won’t create any change.