The Media: Carriers of Contagious Information
- Szczegóły
- Utworzono: 20 maja 2007
- Robert B. Cialdini
Most people feel that behaviors become more valid when many others are performing them. In instances of mass delusions, this social validation extends to wildly irrational acts that seem to reflect correct choices not because of any hard evidence in their favor but merely because multiple others seem to have chosen them. Thus, the media should take care in the depictions of panics, as those depictions are not only likely to reflect the panic but to incite it as well.
Besides the number of others who have performed an action, there is another feature of others that makes their actions contagious—similarity. People follow the actions of others who are like them. Here, again, the media must exercise caution—this time in the presentation of self-destructive behaviors, as these behaviors can take on a copycat character. For example, after highly publicized suicide stories appear in the media, the suicide rate jumps in those areas that have been exposed to the stories (Phillips, 1989). Apparently, certain troubled individuals imitate the actions of other troubled individuals in the act of suicide. What is the evidence that this increase in self-inflicted deaths comes from the tendency to look to similar others for direction? Copycat suicides are more prevalent among people who are similar in age and sex to the victim in the previously publicized suicide story. For instance, following a German television story of a young man who killed himself by leaping in front of a train, railway suicides increased dramatically, but only among other young German men (Schmidtke & Hafer, 1988).
By no means am I suggesting that the media should be censored in the reporting of news of genuine value. But, media representatives can reduce the negative societal consequences of events such as panics and suicides by reducing the repetitiousness and sensationalism of their coverage. Otherwise, they may be guilty of two sins: distorting and intensifying the impact of these events.
Robert Cialdini, Professor of Psychology on Arizona State University in USA. He's one of the greatest psychologists of the world, and in His job He connects successfully theory with practice. Interests: persuasion and compliance, altruism, and the tactics of favorable self-presentation.
References
- Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice. (4th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
- Gracian, B. (1649/1945). The art of worldly wisdom. New York: Charles Thomas.
- MacKay, C. (1841/1932). Popular delusions and the madness of crowds. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
- Phillips, D. P. (1989). Recent advances in suicidology: The study of imitative suicide. In R. F. W. Diekstra, R. Maris, S. Platt, A. Schmidtke, & G. Sonneck (Eds.), Suicide and its prevention: The role of attitude and imitation (pp. 299-312). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- Schmidtke, A., & Hafner, H. (1988). The Werther effect after television films: New evidence for an old hypothesis. Psychological Medicine, 18, 665-676.
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