I once heard this phrase: "Everything affects everything." I thought! And then they told me or I read somewhere: "Your environment affects you." Those. the circle of communication with which you are constantly in contact has a huge influence on you. Perhaps you didn’t even suspect about it or don’t attach any importance to it, but it’s true! The power of influence of our environment on us is HUGE! And this influence does not always help us. From the moment I heard this, I began to observe myself. And you know - it really is! I was deeply impressed by this.

hmm. And where to get these richest and most successful in their environment?

Have you ever wondered how other people shape your life? The influence of those around us is so powerful, so subtle and constant that often we cannot even imagine how much it affects us.

Let's think about it. If you are surrounded by people who are mostly hired workers, then what are your chances of becoming a successful entrepreneur? Or people who are completely spending all their income, then you have a chance to become a wasteful person. Or if you are surrounded by people who don't read books, your chances that you won't either increase.

But this influence can go even further. If you are surrounded by people who believe that it is okay to cheat others a little, then they can convince you, too, to bend some rules. People slowly lead you astray until one day, 10 years later, you ask yourself: “How did I get into this position?” And this moment, I think, will not be very joyful for you.

I want to share my memories from my childhood and youth. For quite a long time I grew up and walked in a company where the main occupation was to smoke cannabis and drink vodka. And in such an environment, I myself almost became an alcoholic or drug addict. Thanks a lot my father, who back in those years, beat off the desire to do all this. However, most of my then friends drank too much, became drug addicts, and so on.

To avoid wasting time in the company of people who are not suitable for you, ask yourself 3 questions:
1. What kind of people do I spend my time with? What kind of people am I?
2. How do they treat me? What are they doing for me?
3. Is communicating with them helpful to me? I like it?

After answering these questions, evaluate the time you spend with each of your acquaintances, is it positive and constructive, or vice versa? If you find it difficult to answer, then think about the following questions:
- What did these people advise you to read or listen to?
- Where did they recommend you to visit?
- What made you think about it?
- How did they affect your conversations, feelings, etc.

There is also another, I would say, “control” question that will help you: “Do my current acquaintances help me move and grow in the direction that I have chosen by setting a goal?”

Are there people who judge you for your Dream, are there people who want to steal your Dream? It is very easy to allow other people's influence to shape your life.

After you have made such a mini-analysis of your environment, you, dear Reader, will have the following question: “What should I do if there are people in my environment who really do not contribute to my growth and movement towards the goal?”

There are several recommendations:
First, you can simply part with them. Although the word "simple", I probably used in vain. Sometimes it's far from easy, especially when it comes to your family members or close friends. Of course, in some cases it is generally impossible to do this, but try to limit communication with such people, to minimize it.

It is easy to remain a mediocre person, all it takes is spending your main time on insignificant things with insignificant people.

Secondly, it may turn out that 90% will need to refuse to communicate with your environment. With whom then to communicate? To do this, you need to expand your communication. Those. meet and spend more time with the right people. And who are these right people? It depends on your goals and objectives. In my opinion, these are people who think about the meaning of life, live every minute with sense and alignment, constantly improve personally and spiritually, etc.

It may seem to someone that it is difficult to make acquaintances with such people. I will tell you how I do it.
When I decided to create my own business, I became a partner of Glorion Holding. The holding arranges quite often all sorts of training events. And so, I went to one of these events, which is called the Leaders Forum. It was in February of this year, in Egypt. There were more than 400 people, as well as the founders of the Holding and the President. This gave me the opportunity for 10 days to communicate with people who have achieved a lot in this business. I received a charge of motivation, energy, training. Thus, all this time I was surrounded by the “right” people for me.
And in fact, thanks to this business, my circle of “right” people is constantly expanding.

In the same way, if you want to improve your health, find those people who have this health in excellent shape and who constantly maintain it. Sign up for a fitness club, swimming pool, etc. For example, I recently started doing yoga. I enrolled in a yoga school and practice there. And in turn, I expand my acquaintances in this area, communicate with people who have been engaged for a long time, they give recommendations, prompt, advise.

In the same way, from any other field you can find the “right” people who will best contribute to your growth and advancement.

In conclusion of today's issue, I want to tell you a story about a small bird. She was crying, closing her eyes. The owl asked her: “Are you crying? Why? Because a big bird pecked on your eye?”
And the little bird answered her:
“No, I'm not crying because a big bird pecked me in the eye. I'm crying because I let her do it."

It's easy to let circumstances shape our lives and let those around us decide where we go. Let others live unworthily, but not you. Let others argue over trifles, but not you. Let others entrust their future into someone else's hands, but not you.

Dmitry Miroshnik

Have you ever wondered how your environment greatly affects your success, personal life, luck? Look around you, who is around you? What is your job? Or what's going on in your family? Even seemingly harmless neighbors can seriously affect your success.

What defines our life?

What do you think determines our capabilities?

What determines successes and failures, the achievement of goals, the quality of life in general, self-realization, the amount of money and whether we are able to enjoy it?

Someone believes that everything is predetermined in advance - by genetics and the character that developed in childhood, others believe that everything depends on the case, others place responsibility on the knowledge they possess.

According to research, at least half of our success or failure is determined by our environment. Thus, the role of interpersonal communication can be called key. And the same knowledge, for example, changes our lives by only ten percent.

Your immediate environment

Therefore, if you want to know your possibilities and prospects, just remember who you communicate with the most: your family, friends and colleagues, maybe those with whom you go to fitness or dancing.

Who and what tells you, what mood radiates? Are these the people you would like to be like?

Good practice- make a list of several people who make up your main social circle - from five to ten names. And see what quality of interaction each of them gives.

It is common for them to grieve, rejoice or complain, maybe they are workaholics or vice versa, life-burners?

These people with their qualities define you and your thinking. It is impossible to be joyful in the company of depressed whiners. And it is very difficult to whine yourself if there are only successful and purposeful people around.

In addition, you may find that you are very comfortable with some people, unpleasant with others, and neither.

Types of interpersonal communication

We can conditionally divide communication into three types: enriching, borderline and toxic.

toxic- with complainers, people who are always dissatisfied with everything, who do not value themselves or others, with people addicted to unpleasant habits, like alcohol.

We almost always feel great what is toxic for us, feeling tired, negative, empty after.

Why do we often communicate with such people for years?

As a rule, we want to feel good about helping a perpetually unhappy girlfriend or supporting a friend who is still not getting a job. Or we are afraid to look bad, "leaving a friend in trouble."

In fact, good friends are known not in trouble, but in joy. If you know how to be happy for a person and see that he is ready to be happy for you, this can be called friendship. But when we are around, only if something happened - there may be hidden reasons for this.

A common motivation for friendship with the “unfortunate”, which they don’t really like to talk about, is the desire to assert themselves at the expense of them. If you caught yourself doing something like this, this is an occasion to think about yourself and your self-esteem.

If you are helping, then you should also consciously answer the question - do you really need your help? Or is the person simply attracting attention, trying to avoid responsibility for their actions?

Border Communication- neutral, usually with colleagues, neighbors, business partners. It is important that it be on the case. If you are not connected by spiritual intimacy or common interests, then there should be a business approach. Otherwise, such an interaction is just a hole into which energy and time go.

And finally enriching communication.

These are the people who move you forward., their example inspires you, you like their space, they are happy for you. To understand whether a person enriches or devastates is very simple.

Listen to your feelings. If you feel that after meeting him you always feeling unwell or your mood is spoiled, you don’t need to deceive yourself that bad weather or unfamiliar food is to blame: you feel bad from your interlocutor.

Or vice versa: you talked to someone, and you got a feeling of fullness, it became good and joyful, although you just discussed some situation or didn’t even talk about anything specific. This means that the field of a particular person affects you in a favorable way. It's easy to recognize. And you must ensure that there is more of this enriching fellowship in your life than any other.

How to change environment?

A natural question arises: if I understand that there are a lot of toxic people around me or those who do not give me anything, how can I change this?

The Universe has a property that helps us a lot in development: it does not tolerate a vacuum. Therefore, for the appearance of something new, you need to make room for it, getting rid of the old.

Don't be afraid to be alone.

First of all, other people, events and opportunities will surely come to the vacated place.

And secondly, It is not necessary to abruptly cut off all ties at once. This can also be done, but such a radical option is not suitable for everyone.

You can gradually complete old connections and build new ones that inspire and delight you. Your desire for change, your intention will attract new people and repel those who are no longer on the path.

Other ways to change the environment

Sometimes the transition period turns out to be too long, and it is difficult for us to overcome previous trends that still repel positive people.

The environment that you have now, you also somehow attracted by a certain state. Because you and I are always in attraction, we are always attracting - and here main question- whom.

In this case, you can use mediated communication (although it's worth using anyway).

Surround yourself with images of successful, interesting, inspiring people. Now, with the development social networks, it's especially easy. Read books and interviews, watch shows, subscribe to Instagram or a video channel.

Even if for some reason you do not personally communicate with anyone, this virtual contact will affect you in the right way. Collages with photographs of those who have achieved success or developed the necessary qualities help someone, it is better for someone to listen to programs - see what works best for you.

And here you need to choose those whom you would like to be like. To do this, you need to understand what qualities you would like to develop in yourself, what exactly you want to receive. Or what skills are important to you - then you need to contact professionals in a particular field.

And do not just think that you will rob them in such a way, which suspicious people sometimes fear. This is an energy exchange that is beneficial to both you and them. They receive the energy of your attention when you tune in to them, and you get the right vibrations, everything is honest.

ten inspiring people

After you write down five to ten people who influence you now, try writing a new list of ten people you would like to be like.

It could be your friends or famous people, not important. The main thing is that there are specific images that will become a guide. And you can imagine yourself in their place, imagine how they behave, how they feel, how they live those qualities that you would like to have.

They will move you in the right direction, their vibrations will influence you, you will be in sync with them.

If, say, you lack self-confidence, imagine someone very confident, how he feels from the inside, how he reacts to situations.

This does not mean that you will become like him, do not be afraid to lose your individuality. You will still be yourself, but this experience will show your subconscious that a situation of self-confidence is possible. Experience is very important, without it there is simply nothing.

How it works?

Why is it important to surround yourself with images of success and joy?

Why isn't it enough just to strive for them?

In order for the subconscious mind to "allow" us to achieve something different than what we have now, it must see - this is not dangerous, perhaps normal, and so on. It constantly guards us, cares for our well-being and will not take risks. And until you agree with him, nothing will work, unfortunately.

Those around us show our subconscious daily examples of how it can be. Through pictures of success, joy, luck or professionalism, you will show yourself every day that everything is achievable. And the path will become easier.

Hybrid communication and assistance

There are times when communication is difficult to classify as enriching or toxic, because it is one way today and another tomorrow.

Indeed, there are people who seem to be unable to decide, and then they behave inspiringly, then they infect you with negativity. It is important to rely on your feelings here.

It is you who should be more aware of whether a pleasant conversation with a person today is worth the negativity that he gives out the next day. Often we are simply afraid of not finding new contacts, experiencing the need for interpersonal communication, and therefore we downplay unpleasant moments. But, as you can see, there will be no emptiness, and, having broken old ties, you will definitely find new ones.

It is possible and even necessary to communicate with people who are worse than us, whom we can help, but only if they ask, that is, there should be no unsolicited interference. Otherwise, you will simply throw energy into nowhere, destroy your life, and you will not help them either.

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Man is a social being, if you do not take into account the monks and hermits who are outside the social periphery. Nevertheless, let us dwell on the choice of the usual average individual.

It is quite natural that the people who surround us directly influence our thoughts and our way of life. Saying this, we did not discover America. And yet, rarely does anyone manage to painlessly escape from the familiar and such a comfortable environment, especially if we want to change something in our lives.

So, first we copy the behavior of parents and loved ones. With their help, a relation to the world is laid. At these moments, a certain picture of being is formed in a small child, still unconscious and unsteady. Then we form a circle of friends (classmates, classmates, colleagues) with whom our interests and way of thinking converge. And thus we supplement our children's picture of the world, which turns into an already established way of thinking. In turn, our thinking shapes the way of life that we implement and adjust throughout our lives.

This happens all the time and with everyone. And with this, you can exist quite peacefully until you decide to change your life.

"Tell me who your friend is and I'll tell you who you are" everyone famous phrase, which carries deep meaning. Or more: "With whom you bring bread and salt, you are like that". American sociologists and political scientists have proven that at least three circles of your environment (your friends - friends of your friends - friends of your friends' friends) influence your life. That is, if a person from the third circle smokes, then you have an 11% chance of smoking, and if your friend smokes, then by as much as 36%. This is the so-called viral behavior that is inherent in you and your friends.

Here's what it looks like in practice: if your entourage spends their entire paycheck the first week and then sits on the beans, then most likely you are also an unscrupulous spender. If your close friends are unhappy in their personal lives, then most likely you are also a loner. If your best friend likes to drink beer every day, chances are you drink beer when you meet him. This is quite natural, because for you this is normal behavior, that is, the same as for your immediate environment.

This can explain why people from radically different social strata have a minimum chance of making friends, and Cinderella was so lucky only in a fairy tale. Why is this happening? Because such people do not intersect the circles of the environment or intersect so little that they cannot influence the change in each other's lifestyle.

So what does that mean? Quarrel with all the girlfriends who don't have husbands? Do not communicate with relatives because they do not receive enough money? This is some nonsense! Of course, you don't have to change your environment so drastically. Everyone has difficult times and this is not a reason to delete a person from your life, but it is desirable, on the contrary, to help. But if you start to change, really change - habits, thoughts, actions, then many of your surroundings will leave. Yes, they will leave, not with a scandal, not with a quarrel for centuries, but simply cease to be interesting for you, and you for them, because you have already reached a different level of thinking, development. Call it what you want, but the fact remains: if you decide to quit smoking, then smoking colleagues will eventually stop calling you to the smoking room, which means that you will no longer be aware of all the events they discuss. There is a certain gap between you. You see how everything is interconnected, that one affects the other, and this chain stretches and stretches. It can be broken, for example, by starting to smoke again. And you make a huge leap... back!

What do psychologists say about this? Has it ever happened to you that when communicating with someone during a conversation, your well-being worsens, your head starts to hurt, your thoughts get confused, your shoulders sink, and you return home like a squeezed lemon? Minimize contact with such people. Even in the world of work there is such a term as people who are psychologically incompatible with the team, from whom the authorities seek to get rid of as quickly as possible. In general, exclude communication with mentally unbalanced people, with whiners, bullies, hysterics, envious people. After all, they directly affect your state of mind. Communicate more with people who are an example for you. "Near good man you will rub like a copper penny on silver, and then you yourself will go down to two kopecks ”. Folk wisdom knows what it's talking about! It, like psychology, should not be underestimated.

In R. Kiyosaki's book "Cash Flow Quadrant", the author suggests doing the following exercise: write on a piece of paper those people with whom you closely communicate, and then evaluate in which sector of the money quadrant they are. Here is an example of a picture to make it clearer what we are talking about:

So, all these people point you to where you are now specifically in financial terms. It can be interpreted in different ways, transferring such conclusions to all areas. This is the truth of life. And it will help you look at yourself objectively.

There are two ways to influence a person's life from the point of view of society:

1. The environment affects you.
2. You influence the environment.

Everything is clear with the first one. And in the second case, you might think: how can you change your environment when they are in the majority? There is an expression: if you want to change the world, start with yourself. Better not to say! Or here is another interesting expression: it is easier to put on sandals than to cover the whole earth with a carpet.

Western psychologists in the course of research have concluded this: the environment affects our behavior, and behavior, in turn, shapes our habits and skills. This is what our whole life is made of. And if you want to change your habits, you set a goal that disciplines and organizes you. As a result, if the goal is correct, and your motivation is strong enough, then your habits also change, further behavior is corrected, which already directly affects the environment. Everything is very simple: the goal is habits and skills - behavior - environment. You began to change, the environment changed.

Hang out with successful people if you want to be successful. Take an example from the happy ones, then you will be happy too! It is not necessary by hook or by crook to try to make friends with them, just watch their life, try on their way of thinking. If you want to become a millionaire, watch how millionaires live, peep, ask, search! Do not be a hostage of your own and other systems! Finally, crawl out of that damned comfort zone! And everything will work out!

And as Steve Pavlina, a well-known personal growth blogger, said: “decide who these people are for you: elevator operators or jailers?”.

We have prepared this article based on a lecture given by Ildar Abitov, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Institute of Psychology and Education of KFU, as part of the PROScience Festival at Kazan Federal University.

For a long time in psychological science there was an opinion that a person has certain psychological features affecting his personality. Having identified them, it is possible to predict how a person will behave in a given situation. For example, if a person has increased aggressiveness, then it can be assumed that he will behave antisocially. Today, various studies challenge this judgment. We invite you to consider the most famous psychological experiments that change our understanding of the motives of actions and our interaction with others.

hawthorne effect

The first studies of this type began in the 20-30s of the 20th century with an experiment conducted in Hawthorne, as a result of which the so-called Hawthorne effect was revealed.

A group of psychologists led by Elton Mayo had the task of finding out what factors affect labor productivity.

It turned out that in addition to various ergonomic characteristics, such as the distance from the worker to the machine, the fact of observation also affects productivity: when the work of weavers was observed, their productivity increased, although the workers were warned in advance that they should not pay attention to this, because “surveillance” will not affect the bonus in any way, nor will it lead to a reprimand. And yet, despite all the warnings, the workers worked better.

When this effect began to be investigated in more detail, it turned out that there are two explanations for this phenomenon. The first was that the weavers showed sociality, or the need to belong to a group, and the second was that the experiment contributed to the emphasis on informal relationships at work, which, as it turned out, had a positive effect on increasing productivity. The conclusions from this experiment should be adopted by people working with small social groups, including company executives.

We are all conformists at heart

Another interesting experiment, which entered the history of social psychology, was conducted by the American psychologist Solomon Ash. He divided the subjects into groups of 2 to 7 people. Among the participants, only one was a naive subject, ignorant of the purpose of the experiment, while the rest were decoys.

Solomon Ash showed the group two cards: the first one showed one segment, the other three segments. He offered the participants to choose from three segments the one that corresponds in length to the segment on the first card. I must say that the segments were very different, so it was impossible to make a mistake.

With each of the "real" subjects, Ash conducted a series of experiments. It all started with the fact that the whole group answered correctly, but at some point the decoy subjects began to give incorrect answers. At this point, an amazing thing happened to the real participants: 30% of the people following the group answered all the questions incorrectly. It also turned out that 75% of the subjects at least once gave the wrong answer, following the majority. Their explanations for why they did so were quite different. Most often, participants said they were afraid to make a mistake, believing that perhaps they did not know what the group knew.

The subjects also explained their mistakes by saying that they simply did not want to be different from others. Interestingly, the sheer number of participants affected nonconforming behavior. Where there were only 2 people in the group, the distorted answer of the decoy participant did not solve anything: the real subject easily coped with the task. The same thing happened in groups of three.

But where there were more decoy participants, the effect of conformity was manifested. After that, Ash created such a modification of the experiment, where one of the dummy participants began to confront the group, claiming that others were wrong. In this case, the real participant gave a non-comfortable answer much more often.

Diffusion of responsibility

Before proceeding to the third experiment, it is worth referring to the historical precedent. In 1964, a tragic story took place in a large city. A young woman, Katherine Genovese, about 27-28 years old, was returning from work at three in the morning: she worked as a receptionist in a bar. Genovese arrived at the courtyard of her house, located in a rather crowded area, and, getting out of the car, she saw that a suspicious person was crouching, watching her.

Katherine ran to a telephone booth to call the police, but the man caught up with her and stabbed her. At the screams of the girl, the awakened neighbors began to look out of the windows. They began to shout: “Leave the girl alone!”, but no one came down to help. The offender got scared and fled, after which Katherine tried to get to the entrance. The light in the windows went out, people went to bed, and the man returned and continued to mock the girl. She began to scream again, people looked out of the windows, and the criminal fled.

This happened three more times: the man returned and struck again. The last time Katherine was near her entrance and tried to open the door, but she failed to do this, and she was killed. After the incident, articles appeared in the newspapers with information that 38 people were witnesses to the crime, but none of them helped, did not call the police or an ambulance. Then a wave of discussions swept through the public space, in which they tried to find out what was happening to people in big cities that they became so indifferent to the misfortune of their neighbor.

They talked a lot about the special laziness and callousness of city dwellers. Social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane decided to test this judgment: they did not believe that people behave in a special way precisely because of living in a large city. To find out what is the reason for this indifference, they conducted several experiments. One of them was the following: psychologists recruited students as subjects and said that they would investigate the life difficulties that young people face in the first year and how they overcome them.

The subject was placed in a separate room and given a microphone. The experimenters said that students were also sitting in neighboring rooms, but they should not see each other. Now each participant had to take turns talking about their difficulties. The first student said that in New York it is not easy for him, his studies are difficult, and, in addition, he periodically has epileptic seizures. Sometimes they are so severe that he can die if no one helps.

After him, the next student spoke, and so the turn came to the subject, who also told his story. At the end, the word was returned to the first student, and suddenly noise appeared on the air, labored breathing was heard, the student began to ask for help, then only wheezing was heard. The experimenters were interested in how the participants would react in this situation.

In fact, there were no students, except for one test subject. Everything that happened was a recording, but the participant in the experiment did not know this. The experimenter, on the other hand, deliberately sat outside, having warned in advance that he would not interfere in the process of the experiment, so as not to influence its course, and would listen to the recordings of the participants later. In other words, the student thought that other participants were sitting around him in several rooms, and in the corridor there was an unsuspecting experimenter.

It turned out that only 31% of the participants in such studies ran out in order to tell the experimenter about what had happened or to somehow help. Moreover, all participants were healthy, intellectually developed people. This was the result when the subjects thought that there were also people in the neighboring rooms and knew about what was happening.

But when the experiment was conducted differently, saying that there were only two participants - in fact, a student and a fictitious patient - already about 80% of the subjects ran to save the dying person themselves and called the experimenter. Why were the results different? The conclusion that the researchers made is that the fewer people, the more likely they are to help. This effect has been termed "responsibility diffusion".

Psychologists have also identified another pattern: if the subject does not leave the room during the first 3 minutes, then most likely he will not leave the room to provide assistance.

Obey!

Another experiment that became a cornerstone for psychology was conducted by Stanley Milgram, who later described it in the book Submission to Authority. It took place at Yale University in the early 60s and was directly related to the social situation of that time. Relatively recently ended the Second World War, historians and humanitarian researchers have hypothesized why the German soldiers killed a huge number of people.

There were many suggestions, but the most popular was the psychoanalytic idea associated with Freud's name. He believed that the figure of the father was especially significant for the child, so scientists suggested that German boys, brought up in strong patriarchal traditions, followed the Fuhrer, since he was the personification of the father figure. Milgram doubted this judgment and decided to refute it.

To do this, he equipped an office for a laboratory and put a device there that resembled an electric chair. The researcher invited students and people with higher education, promising to pay them $4 to participate.

Milgram said that with the help of the experiment he was going to study the features of memory and the impact of punishment measures on it. He specially selected healthy men up to 45 years old, who were the same age as the German military. The psychologist invited one participant from the group, in the laboratory he was met by an experimenter in a white coat. The purpose of the experiment was explained to the participant, after which a decoy test subject, an actor named Wallace, appeared.

The experimenter offered to draw lots for both, which decided who would be the student and who would be the teacher. Wallace always pulled out a short one, so he served as a student. The actor was taken to a special room, where there was an electric chair, and electrodes were attached to it. Through the partition was the place of the teacher, that is, the real test subject. In front of him was an apparatus with knife switches, from which wires were led to the student's chair, and the experimenter sat next to him. The test subject was previously given a test discharge of a current of 45 volts, so that he would think that a current would really flow to a dummy participant.

It was further explained to him that the student would have to repeat certain combinations of words. If he makes a mistake, then you need to apply a discharge that rises each time, starting from 15 volts and ending with 450 volts. At the level of 300 volts, there was a “pain shock” mark, and at 450 - three x.

The experiment has begun. The first time the student, of course, answered correctly, then he began to make mistakes, and the teacher shocked him. It is important to note that before the experiment, Milgram conducted a survey among students, practicing psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists, wanting to know how many people would reach the very end of the scale in such an experiment. Everyone answered that about 0.5% of all, since only psychopaths are capable of completing the case: there may be undiagnosed people with a tendency to aggression, which will become clear during the experiment.

In fact, 65% of the participants made it to the end, and all 100% of them got to the 300 volt mark. And this despite the fact that the student-actor shouted that he was in a lot of pain, and when there were several divisions left to the end, he kicked the partition with his feet, and then fell silent. A very important socio-psychological conclusion follows from this: the question is not in the figure of the father or other personal factors - it's all about submission to authority.

Participants were influenced by the fact that there was a person in a white coat nearby. When they wanted to stop, the experimenter did not pressure them, but he repeated: “please continue” and “the experiment must be continued.”

Another important point, which is worth noting: when the experimenter at the very beginning of the study paid $ 4, he noted that he would not take the money under any circumstances, so it can be argued that the subjects did not do this because of material interest.

According to Milgram, the findings indicate an interesting phenomenon: "This study showed an extremely strong willingness of normal adults to go who knows how far, following the directions of authority."

That is why, speaking about people's behavior, one cannot explain the motives of actions only by character traits and innate characteristics: our behavior also depends on each specific situation and social environment, to which a lot of interesting research has been devoted to date.

Hello dear blog readers! Today we will look at examples of how our environment affects us. After all, everyone has heard the saying "Tell me who your friend is - and I will tell you who you are." It reflects the essence of the influence of society on the individual. And we will try to figure out not only why this is happening, but also which areas “suffer” in the first place.

Some general information

Man is a social being. And no matter what individual characteristics he possesses, the influence of society on him is simply inevitable. Under the influence of which he changes and reconsiders his views on life. Forms values ​​and prioritizes.

There is even the so-called mirror rule. The meaning of this statement is that the people who are nearby reflect my personality, as in a mirror. The way it is, and not just the most beautiful side, as sometimes you want.

Some of their features do not want to recognize, notice, it is easier to endow them with others. In psychology, there is a protective mechanism - projection.

It seems to help keep our psyche healthy when it is faced with the need to cope with life's complexities. But sometimes, on the contrary, it interferes if it is used too often. It also distorts reality.

Let's say I keep anger in myself from some personal motives, fears. Accordingly, I do not realize at what moments I experience it. Therefore, I can reproach close and not very people for aggressiveness, get hurt about their words, which I consider offensive, evil. Although in fact they did not intend to hurt at all and did not mean anything bad.

So, thanks to the mirror rule, we can take a closer look at those who are nearby and understand that we don’t want to notice in ourselves that we categorically reject it. And also what kind of people we attract, what we react to. This greatly increases the level of awareness. This means that it affects work efficiency, relationships, worldview, and so on.

For more information on defense mechanisms, click on And now let's move on.

Influence examples

I bring to your attention examples of areas of life that “fall under attack” in the first place.

Life style

The psychology of a person is such that he strives to be accepted by society, a group, individuals. It is important for him to feel his belonging to something, and sometimes to “merge” with the crowd, not being a “black sheep”. Only a few strive to be different and are not afraid to express their opinion, even if it is completely opposite to the opinion of the majority.

Accordingly, if your friends are athletes, or individuals who love outdoor activities, it is unlikely that you spend every weekend on the couch with a bottle of beer.

This is because we choose people who are like us. Or they arouse interest in their dissimilarity.

The material was prepared by a psychologist, Gestalt therapist, Zhuravina Alina

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