Social Group
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The people you spend the most time with shape who you are. And our habits reflect on the people that we are with. When you hang out with people who smoke daily. You eventually start smoking too. It always starts with friends.
One of the deepest human desires is to belong to a group. So, cultural habits are one of the most attractive behaviors you will find.
“We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them.”
In this blog, you will understand the three social groups that we imitate. How they influence our behavior and what you can do to use these groups as a leverage to make your habits attractive.
The close
It is common that we copy our parents, our peers, our coworkers and our friends. When all of your closest friends smoke, you will try it too. It is the closest people that we imitate early on in life.
As a general rule, the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits.
The closest people provide some sort of invisible peer pressure that pulls you in their direction. And if these people have a bad influence on you, you will be pulling in the wrong direction.
When you want to build muscles, you can join a fitness group, those people can help you build muscles and indirectly help you create a habit of normalizing going to the gym.
“New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.”
Friendship and communities helps you embed a new identity that last for a long time
The Many
A powerful study from Solomon Asch shows that we are sensitive towards the opinions of the many. When the many behave in a certain way, you will go with their flow. Even if the way of the many is wrong.
You might think that their way is wrong but pressure from the many might alter your decision making process. You might doubt your answer. So, to be sure, you will follow the lead from the rest.
“The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual.”
A key takeaway from the many; When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive.
The Powerful
One thing that we all have in common is that we want power, prestige and status. We are drawn to behaviors that earn us respect, approval, admiration, and status. And, who can we learn the most from these things?
The powerful, the highly effective, and the successful people. We tend to copy their behaviors in the hope to become just like them.
Same in early life, you look up to your dad or a superhero. Just because you admire them. You copy their behavior because you want to be just like them.
So, to make your habit more attractive, you can join a culture where your desired habits are common among those people, watch the habits of the people that you look up to, and understand that the desired behavior can get you respect and praise if you work on it.
Lastly, avoid the wrong crowd as these groups tend to pull you in a bad direction.