EAT® IS NOT NUMB3R5

1 Response to “LOOK AROUND WE MIGHT BE NEAR YOU!”

1. 1 ikut ya
   March 15, 2009 at 8:37 am

   Helped one another dig out of the snow or struggled to cope with your common enemy.
   Such friendliness is common among those who experience a shared threat. John Lanzetta (1955) observed this when he put four-man group of naval ROTC cadets to work on problem-solving task and then began informing them over a loudspeaker that their answer were wrong, their productivity inexcusably low, their thinking stupid. Other groups did not receive this harassment. Lanzetta observed that the group members under duress became friendlier to one another, more cooperative, less argumentative, less competitive. They were in it together. And the result was a cohesive spirit.

   Having a common enemy unified the groups of competing boys in sheriff’s camping experiments and in many subsequent experiments (Dion, 1979). Times of interracial strife similarly heighten group pride. For Chinese university students in Toronto, facing discrimination heightens a sense of kinship with other Chinese (Pak & other, 1991). Just being reminded of an out group (say, a rival school) heightens people’s responsiveness to their own group (Wilder & Shapiro, 1984). When keenly conscious of who “they” are, we also know who “we” are.

   During wartimes against a well-defined external threat, we-feeling soars. The membership of civic organizations mushrooms (Putnam, 2000). Citizens unite behind their leader and support their troops. This was dramatically evident after the catastrophe of 9/11 and the treats of further terrorist attack. In New York City, “old racial antagonisms have dissolved,” reported the New York Times, at least for a while (Sengupta, 2001). “I just thought of myself as black,” said 18-year-old Louis Johnson, reflecting one life before 9/11. “But now I feel like I’m an American, more than ever.” One sampling of conversation on 9/11, and another of New York Mayor Giuliani’s press conferences before and after 9/11, found a doubled rate of the word “we” (Liehr & other, in press; Penne-baker & Lay 2002).

   George W. Bush’s job performance rating reflected this threat-bred spirit of unity. Just before 9/11, a mere 51 percent of Americans approved of his presidential performance. Just after, an exceptional 90 percent approved. In the public eye, the mediocre president of 9/11 had become the exalted president of 10/10 “our leader” in the fight against “those who hate us.” Thereafter, his ratings gradually declined but then jumped again as the war against Iraq began (Figure 13-6, page 546). When Sheldon Solomon and his colleagues (2004) asked Americans students to reflect on the events of 9/11 (rather than on an up-coming exam), they become more likely to agree that “I endorse the actions of President Bush and the members of his administration who have taken bold action in Iraq.”

   Leaders may even create a threatening external enemy as a technique for building group cohesiveness. George Orwell’s novel 1984 illustrates the tactic: the leader of the protagonist nation uses border conflicts with the other two major powers to lessen internal strife. From time to time the enemy shifts, but there is always an enemy. Indeed, the nation seems to need an enemy. For the world, for a nation, for a group, having a common enemy is powerfully unifying.

   Simulations external threats were also breeding unity elsewhere in the world. Suicide bombers in Israel rallied partisan Jews behind Prime Minister