How To Protect Yourself From Social Contagion
What is Social Contagion?
Social contagion is an emerging theory of behavioral science that studies how behaviors “spread” from person to person in society. I learned this idea from Dr. Susan David, the author of the book Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life.
She illustrates the concept of social contagion in these three concepts:
You step into an elevator and the person in the elevator is on their phone. You are likely to get out your phone as well.
If you are on an airplane and your seatmate buys candy, even if you do not know that person, the research shows that you are 70% more likely to buy candy.
Even more shocking, if people we know by acquaintance, or even by 2-3 degrees of separation, get divorced or put on weight, it significantly increases our chances of getting divorced or putting on weight.
I’ve heard it a lot with my personal clients and experienced it in my own life! The women I work with often comment, “if only my husband would eat healthier meals with me or [insert any other healthy habit] then it would be easier.”
We are easily influenced by our environment, the people closest to us, and our community (2-3 degrees of separation).
How can you protect yourself from this?
Values Affirmation. Even spending 10 mins thinking and writing about your values protects yourself from the influence of social contagion.
These are some ways you can explore your values?
What kind of person you want to become?
What kind of energy to you want to bring to your peers, loved ones and co-workers?
What are the accomplishments you want to achieve?
What are the habits you want to build to achieve those goals?
This is such a deep & juicy topic to get dive into, but this simple exercise is a great way to get started!
Hope you find some time to care for your heart today,
be well,
Nihel
