Weekly Highlights #23

5 things I found interesting, fun or helpful this week.

The School of Knowledge leverages book wisdom to better understand people, businesses, and ideas by bridging the gap between theory and real-world application. Join my growing community of like-minded people below.

📚 Book

There are three conditions where people are likely to succumb to the influence of social proof. Robert Cialdini discusses those three, below.

The principle of social proof states that one important means people use to decide what to believe or how to act in a situation is to examine what others are believing or doing there. Powerful such effects have been found among both children and adults and in such diverse activities as purchase decisions, charity donations, and phobia remission. The principle of social proof can be used to stimulate a person's compliance with a request by communicating that many other individuals (the more, the better) are or have been complying with it. Therefore, simply pointing to the popularity of an item elevates its popularity. Social proof is most influential under three conditions. The first is uncertainty. When people are unsure, when the situation is ambiguous, they are more likely to attend to the actions of others and to accept those actions as correct. In ambiguous situations, for instance, the decisions of bystanders to offer emergency aid are much more influenced by the actions of other bystanders than when the situation is a clear-cut emergency. A second condition under which social proof is most influential involves "the many": people are more inclined to follow the lead of others in proportion to the others' number. When we see multiple others performing an action, we become willing to follow because the action appears to be more (1) correct/valid, (2) feasible, and (3) socially acceptable. The third optimizing condition for social-proof information is similarity. People conform to the beliefs and actions of comparable others, especially their peers-a phenomenon we can call peer-suasion. Evidence for the powerful influence of the actions of similar others can be seen in suicide statistics compiled by sociologist David Phillips. The statistics indicate that after highly publicized suicide stories, other troubled individuals, who are similar to the suicide-story victim, decide to kill themselves. An analysis of the mass-suicide incident at Jonestown, Guyana, sug gests the group's leader, Reverend Jim Jones, used both of the factors of uncertainty and similarity to induce a herdlike suicide response from the majority of the Jonestown population.

- Robert Cialdini, Influence

📜 Article

My latest article discusses what the Roman and Stoic Emperor, Marcus Aurelius thought about tranquillity and how his advice can help you achieve inner peace today.

🎧 Podcast

There aren’t many people who understand the power of consistency better than Haruki Murakami. This week I listened to David Senra discuss his memoir ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.’ A great one for people who are passionate about something.

💭 Quote

"There is a difference between a heap of bricks, on the one hand, and the single house they can constitute, on the other. There is a difference between a single house and a collection of houses. A book is like a single house. It is a mansion having many rooms, rooms on different levels, of different sizes and shapes, with different outlooks, with different uses. The rooms are independent, in part. Each has its own structure and interior decoration. But they are not absolutely independent and separate. They are connected by doors and arches, by corridors and stairways, by what architects call a "traffic pattern."

Because they are connected, the partial function that each performs contributes its share to the usefulness of the whole house. Otherwise the house would not be livable."

- Charles Van Doren, Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

❓ Question

I was asked yesterday what my favourite book was and two popped into my head immediately. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild & Endurance by Alfred Lansing, closely followed by The Ocean Outlaw by Ian Urbina. That’s interesting because they are all ‘adventure’ or ‘exploration’ books, not something I would have said if people asked me what my favourite genre is. Anyway, this week’s question.

• What is your all time favourite book and why? I’ll although you to choose two :)

---

Until next time, Karl (The School of Knowledge).

If you found this article helpful and think it could benefit others, please share it!

📚 The School of Knowledge leverages book wisdom to better understand people, businesses, and ideas by bridging the gap between theory and real-world application. Join my growing community of like-minded people below💡

---