Beware your Social Personality

It could hijack your actual identity

We are both individuals and members of families, groups, communities and societies, and nations. Humans evolved to cooperate as groups. Being social animals, we often mute our individual personalities and character traits to conform to the values, preferences, and cultures of social groups.

“All the world is a stage and personality is the mask one wears to play the assigned role.” (Sam Keen, American author)

In trying to conform to the social settings, we project a different personality than what we are. Robert Greene, in his book. “The Laws of Human Nature” describes this phenomenon as our “social personality”.

“Our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people.”

(Marcel Proust )

There is always a tension between our identities and the social personality that we act out in the group. The pressure to conform makes us imitate what others in the group are thinking, saying, and doing. We may act impulsively and irrationally if we permit the social personality to override our unique personality. Like a contagion, the group’s irrational emotions and fears infect us.

Trying to fit into groups and communities and societies is natural and inevitable. Nobody can oppose the cultural values of the group in which they are a member. Swimming against the tide of social conventions is not only difficult, but we will also struggle to keep our heads above water if the social group punishes us for our dissent and unconventional behaviour.

Balancing our true selves and the false image we assume to survive in the group is a challenging task. While enacting our assigned roles in the group, we need to ensure that group dynamics do not hijack our thinking and make us act against our own interests.

This balancing act demands high self-awareness. We must be able to preserve our essential identities without offending the group culture. This awareness has to work on two levels. One, we have to keep a watch on how the group affects our individual traits. Two, we must examine and understand the group’s typical patterns of thinking and behaviour so that we can protect ourselves from getting overwhelmed by ideas and beliefs inimical to our interests.

Once in a group or workplace, we worry about how others view us. Do they accept us as part of the group? This is a primal fear we share with our chimpanzee cousins.

“Depending on patterns from early childhood, in the group setting we become more passive or more aggressive than usual, revealing the less developed sides of our character.” (Robert Greene )

When we are in a sporting event or a political rally, we are infected by the predominant emotions of the group. Robert Greene calls this intense energy that binds the members of a group through shared emotions and a sense of connection as ‘social force’ This invisible force field acts as a glue that binds the members together.

This force field imposes itself on us when we are in group settings. We automatically imitate the groups’ behavior. If we are not careful, the group’s primal energies reminiscent of our ancient roots will sweep us away.

We have to monitor the group’s culture, its internal codes of behaviour, the relationships between various members, and so on. We must keep an internal space of autonomy while acting our roles in the group.

Most organizations function like ancient royal courts with their own hierarchies of power. People in the group act like the courtiers of ancient courts, trying to ingratiate themselves with the leader. There will be groups within the group trying to outdo each other to get closer to the leader.

We must carefully navigate the minefields of internal politics without compromising our autonomy while trying to fit into the group as much as possible.

We must cultivate group intelligence to survive and flourish in group settings. Group intelligence will help us watch our own reactions to the group dynamics and adapt to the group’s culture without compromising our autonomy.

Unless we are careful, the social personality that we project on to the world will hijack our identities and we will lose the ability to step back and observe how the group dynamics change our own behaviour.

Politics and religion evoke our tribal instincts of mindless conformity and senseless hatred of the ‘other’. In social media, we are carried away by emotions when we interact with like-minded people who share our likes and dislikes. We dance to the drumbeats of tribalism and forget who we are and what our real values are.

Like the actors on the stage who seamlessly move from their assigned roles to their actual identities once the curtain comes down, we must switch smoothly from the group to our autonomous selves.

“The secret of personality growth is to live a life that integrates freely chosen social obligations while remaining true to ourselves.” (Jim McMartin, American author)

Eternal vigilance is the price of personal autonomy.

Thanks for reading.