{"id":28488,"date":"2021-03-12T14:05:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T18:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=28488"},"modified":"2021-03-15T21:31:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T01:31:18","slug":"social-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"How Social Habits Lead to Societal Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are social habits? How can they contribute to larger societal movements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-start-a-movement\/\">how to start a movement<\/a> starts with understanding peoples&#8217; social habits. People communicate constantly within their social circles, and social habits can help <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/spread-ideas\/\">ideas spread<\/a> and convince people to take action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about social habits below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">From Social Habits to Social Movements<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Many social movements are encouraged by peoples&#8217; social habits. When we see our friends caring about something, we&#8217;re encouraged to care, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>1) Movements Start With a Victim<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Social movements often begin with a victim who suffered an injustice, like being injured or discriminated against.<\/strong>&nbsp;Immediately, the victim\u2019s close friends band together to help, as the habits of friendship would dictate. (Cue: friend is in trouble; Routine: help the friend; Reward: happiness from helping friend). To have a broad social movement, it helps if the victim is well connected in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2) Movements Spread Through the Community by Social Habits<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For the movement to grow, it now must expand beyond the immediate clique and involve a whole community, many of whom have only weak ties to the victim<\/strong>. Now, the habits of social pressure kick in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A 1960s study found that&nbsp;<strong>weak ties (or friends of friends) were more instrumental in getting people jobs than close friends<\/strong>. The reason is that you likely belong to the same clique as your close friends, and thus access the same pool or opportunities. In contrast, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/weak-ties\/\">weak tie<\/a> friends access social networks that you don\u2019t belong to and find opportunities you would otherwise never hear of. But the tie is strong enough that the friend of a friend will still help you much more than she would a stranger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This weak tie behavior seems like an automatic habit<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 if you get a request to help a friend of a friend, &nbsp;you likely don\u2019t think explicitly, \u201cwell Mary is a friend of Jason\u2019s, so if I help Mary, I\u2019ll look better to Jason.\u201d You just feel a compunction to help. (This behavior might have evolved biologically when close knit communities were more fit for survival.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you don\u2019t help the friend of a friend, you risk losing your social status from the community.<\/strong>&nbsp;Jason will know he can no longer rely on you for help, and he\u2019ll tell your mutual friends, and so forth. So peer pressure also forces us to action, when everyone else expects us to perform a certain way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are social habits? How can they contribute to larger societal movements? Learning how to start a movement starts with understanding peoples&#8217; social habits. People communicate constantly within their social circles, and social habits can help ideas spread and convince people to take action. Read more about social habits below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,43],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-28488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-the-power-of-habit","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Social Habits Lead to Societal Change - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Social habits influence the way we behave and interact with one another. They also affect bigger concepts like societal change. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Social Habits Lead to Societal Change\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Social habits influence the way we behave and interact with one another. They also affect bigger concepts like societal change. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-12T18:05:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-16T01:31:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/strangers-truth-default.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"764\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"481\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"How Social Habits Lead to Societal Change\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-12T18:05:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-16T01:31:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\"},\"wordCount\":423,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/strangers-truth-default.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Power of Habit\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Lifestyle\",\"Psychology\",\"Self-Improvement\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/\",\"name\":\"How Social Habits Lead to Societal Change - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/social-habits\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/strangers-truth-default.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-12T18:05:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-16T01:31:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"Social habits influence the way we behave and interact with one another. 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