Author: Dr. Curtis Peterson

Social Psychologist
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The Denial of the Social Self

Podcast of this post can be found by clicking here

Human existences centers around our social relationships. Humans by nature are social creatures that depend on a social structure for survival. However, humans are also conscious creatures, and can develop habits and mindsets that are counter to this structure. This leads to conflict such as war, violent crime, and taking advantage of others to feel power within a social hierarchy. There are also other human conditions that often stem from false belief systems of individualism and the self-made “man”. These belief systems often cause individual pain such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, and drives some individuals to want to end their own life. However, the conflict between our nature as social beings and our false belief in individualism and individual strife, is also a natural process. Individuals must feel they have an individual sense of purpose in order to make a meaningful contribution to the social structure that maintains human existence. The term often used for this is human motivation, but again it would not exist without the need for social integration and social purpose. 

So why then if this is a natural process, do I call individualism a “false” system? It is false in the sense that it strips away the importance of the social context and world we live in and places too much emphasis on the individual. False in the sense it exaggerates one aspect of the self and the cost to the other. It also creates a situation in which we become detached from our nature towards things that artificially compensate for our lack of social understanding. An example of this includes the need to make wealth as a primary focus of success. While gaining resources is vital to human survival, human survival does not rely on excessive wealth that overly advantages one person, over the other people who work to create that wealth. The interesting part of this discussion is that even this wealth gain has a social underpinning, as it is used to display the individual’s social power and hierarchy within the social system they exist in. The falsehood is, however, is that wealth is rarely because of the individual, it requires a social system to create wealth. For example, Elan Musk would not be a billionaire without the consumer who buys the products is company produces. Taking this further Musk does not build every one of the electric cars his company makes. No this requires many other individuals to build each car, and in order to provide Musk with the idea that he is the builder we dehumanize the efforts of the other individuals by simply calling them the laborer and workers. In this redefining of Musk, he is not self-made person as we would falsely assume under the philosophy of individualism. Rather he is an individual who took advantage of the social structures within the world and exploits that for his own wealth. 

Elon Musk is just on example, as we do not need to only look at the super wealthy to see our world is not made of just individuals but rather a social system. We can look at institutions such as the family system, governmental, and religious structures. Within in any of these systems individuals can exploit to take individual advantage of the system. This can range from domestic violence justification as the “man is the head of the household” to the pastor who has a million-dollar home justifying it as a “gift for his/her service to god”. These two examples both exploit social systems, by justifying the actions under the misguided philosophy of individualism. So why is individualism so powerful?

I stated at the beginning we have two natural systems that are aimed towards one goal human survival through social structures and systems. The first system is the need to belong, and the second system is the need to feel purposeful and meaningful. The second system is what creates motivation within the individual to become socially relevant. When we “feel” relevant we feel a sense of what is commonly referred to as “power”. In this context power is one’s feeling of being in control and untouchable. It is a protective feeling, because of the problems with individualism, we often feel threat from others instead of seeing others as benign. In order then to protect the self, individuals will often exploit the social system to protect their sense of self often called their ego. The problem with this notion is these threats grow from not understanding the social aspects of the human mind and need. Human conflict does not grow from our social world, rather it grows from a broken system of individualism and the need to protect that aspect of the self-system. Therefore, in the example of wealth, money is not the “root of all evil” it is rather a compensation for our lack of social belonging and denial of our social selves, which then creates the conditions for evil to happen.

Presentation to Southern Arizona Association for Education of Young Children Annual 2020 CONFERENCE:

THE IMPORTANCE OF BELONGING AND CONNECTION DURING STRESS AND A PANDEMIC
LA IMPORTANCE DE LA PERTENENCIA Y LACONEXIÓN DURANTE EL ESTRÉS Y UNA PANDEMIA

Link to Apple podcast [CLICK HERE]

Himdag Committee Faculty Training Day 2 – The Self and Identity Podcast

This training is provided for Faculty, Staff, and the community to understand how the Tohono O'odham Himdag drives the college. Day 2. 
  1. Himdag Committee Faculty Training Day 2
  2. Tohono O'odham Community College Himdag Committee Training
  3. The Importance of Belonging and Connection During Stress and a Pandemic – La importance de la pertenencia y la conexión durante el estrés y una pandemia
  4. Intro to Psychology Series Defining Identity, Belonging, and Loneliness
  5. Intro to Psychology Lecture Series Defining Self-concept

Goals of Presentation:

1.Describe the finding of research during COVID-19 crisis on belonging, social connection, and identity. (Describir el hallazgo de la investigación durante la crisis de COVID-19 sobre pertenencia, conexión social e identidad.)

2.Provide an understanding of how identity influence social belonging and how these two experiences relate to loneliness/connection, depression/intention, hopelessness/hopefulness, meaningless/meaningful, self-destructive behaviors/constructive behaviors.  (Proporcione una comprensión de cómo la identidadinfluye en la pertenencia social y cómo estas dos experiencias se relacionan con la soledad / conexión, la depresión / intención, la desesperanza / esperanza, los comportamientos autodestructivos / constructivos sin sentido / significativos.)

3.Describe the influence of lack of belongingness and social connection influence on immune response which relates to mortality and morbidity. (Describir la influencia de la falta de pertenencia y la influencia de la conexión social en la respuesta inmune que se relaciona con la mortalidad y la morbilidad.)

4.Provide tools to increase identity and belongingness through self development and social connection. (Proporcionar herramientaspara aumentar la identidad y la pertenencia a través del desarrollopersonal y la conexión social.)

[ClICK HERE] Presentation Handout

[CLICK HERE] Spanish version of social belonging and loneliness assessment

[CLICK HERE] English version of social belonging and loneliness assessment

© DR. CURTIS PETERSON & ELSA PETERSON

The Importance of Belonging and Connection During Stress and a Pandemic – La importance de la pertenencia y la conexión durante el estrés y una pandemia

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dxiei-f42a87

Presentation “THE IMPORTANCE OF BELONGING AND CONNECTION DURING STRESS AND A PANDEMIC (LA IMPORTANCE DE LA PERTENENCIA Y LACONEXIÓN DURANTE EL ESTRÉS Y UNA PANDEMIA). Given by Dr. Curtis Peterson English and in Spanish by Mrs. Elsa Peterson the the Southern Arizona Association for the Education of Young Children 2020 Annual Conference. 

The Psychology of Rioting and Looting

Understanding Rioting Behavior and Looting.

Of recent there has been a lot of discussion about protests, and the riots and looting that came with some of the protests. Of course with this question in the United States is the question of legality of the riots and looting and the moral issues that they bring about. Which to me is interesting, because most of the studies on rioting behavior comes from the rioting and looting (which costs cities millions of dollars a year) after pro-sports games, and the local team loses. Yet these do not make the local or national news very much, and the moral and legal question behind them is never questioned. However, when rioting and looting occurs in the United States within the context of a social justice and equality context, the legality and morality of the issue is always raised. The other issue we should bring up before discussing the psychology of rioting and looting is the issue of opportunistic looting and antagonized rioting. Within any given chaotic system of event there will always be a small group of individuals who will try and take advantage of that chaos. For some that means taking the opportunity to use the looting to steal and take advantage of others for personal gain. For others, especially in the United States, there will be a few that will want to stoke the flames of anger, to “prove” the violent and uncontrollable tendency of the other side. Then creating a “savior” approach by having the system come in using even more violent techniques to subdue these out of control people, while maintaining this idea that they themselves are a peaceful and moral individuals. The problem is, these individuals are only a small percentage. While they can have a large impact on the outcomes of protests, riots, and looting – focusing on them will not solve the key issue that brings about the behaviors of rioting and looting in the first place. Mainly because the key factor for these groups to be effective is chaos, and if we can eliminate chaos we can reduce the effects of these small forces. 

So what is the Psychology of Rioting and Looting?

There are a lot of opinions of what causes rioting and looting. Some are based on the morality of the group, some on the emotional control of the situation, others – and I think rightfully so – focus on the responsibility of the individuals and groups that caused the pain the ignited the protests in the first place. Yet as I introduced in the beginning of this paper, rioting and looting behavior is not limited to social injustice or moral breaches, indeed, it occurs in recreational contexts such as sports. So to understand the psychology of rioting and looting behavior we have to do two things (1) we have to understand the behavior as occurring within the context of the situation, and (2) we have to look at the behavior from an emotionally neutral perspective. I state this because protesting for social justice and equality is far more important and emotionally charged then losing to the opposing team, but both situations can lead to looting and rioting. 

To understand the psychology of looting and rioting we need to start with the concept of identity. When we think of identity we think of all of our qualities, who we are, our beliefs, what we do, the roles we play in life, our personality. I am using the term identity very broadly, this has also been termed a person’s self concept, and in popular literature it often simply referred to as one’s personality. I like using the term identity, because an identity clearly defines one’s self, and whether we know of this self or not we all have a defined self within any given situation. Many parts of our identity is based upon some type of group membership. 

For many of these group memberships we find several psychological and physical similarities between our self as an individual and others in that group, that our identity as a member of that group and our self-identity become indistinguishable. We find this for many people of the same racial and ethnic group for this to be true, or for individuals who come from not only the same racial and/or ethnic group but also have a shared and collective social history. There are also individuals who have a weak sense of individual self-identity, who because of this find a group that they develop an identity through. we often find this with sport “super-fans”, far-right and far-left extremists, individuals who cannot see perspectives  outside their own group such as those who hold extreme religious or political views based on an established religious group belief or political party affiliation (not to be confused with belief systems based on self-study and self exploration not based on group affiliation). So why am I focusing on these two types of identities, and what do they have to do with rioting?

Remember what I said about these forms of identities, they become indistinguishable between the identity of the group and the identity of the individual. Now here a personal reflection activity, what happens when a person is personally insulted? When you are called stupid, dumb, or you constantly making a mistake? You are a loser? You are a waste? If you are like many individuals at first you defensive and maybe you behaviorally for a time you ignore or avoid the insults. You are strong right? You know better. But inside it tearing you up, you feel sad, you find your not being productive, at doctors office you mention how you are feeling and the doctor recommends maybe taking a drug. Your partner recommends changing jobs, if this is happening at work, if it happening in your personal life, you consider leaving the relationship. Now I want you to imaging none of these options are available to you, there are no psychological defenses, no doctors, and no escape. What would you do in this case? Well if you are human or a mammal species for that matter you will start doing self-destructive behaviors, such as self-harming behaviors both physically and psychologically, you most likely stop taking care of your health needs, you will start having self-hatred. Some of that self-hatred may turn externalized, this is often the case in relationship violence. In other words, you first do a form of self-protest “I am not what they say I am and I can change”, when that change does not happen, because you do not have access to the ability to make those changes that then turns into a form of self-looting and self-rioting. Not only do you start seeing the “I” you start referring to yourself in the second person “you” – “you are such an ugly worthless person”. 

Now let us take this to the group level to our two very different groups. The first group is individuals who have a shared racial and collective social history and the second who have a weak self-identity so they have gained a sense of identity through absorbing the identity of a group. The first group reflects the current protests in the United States. We have a group who have been treated very badly in the United States, they have done their fair share to build this country and have a shared identity to be very proud of, yet the identity they are “told” they have – through society’s actions – is one that is extremely negative and demeaning. 

The second group reflects what happens when a local sports team loses to a rival team. Both reflect the  same form of self-destructive behavior we talked about in the previous section but because the insult is happening on the social level the self-destruction is occurring on the social level. This is what research has found time and time again when it comes to the psychology of rioting and looting behavior. It is a form of self-destruction, of screaming for relief of the pain. They are often not looking for a savior, they simply looking for the psychological relief that they are worth something, more than what society or the world treats them. In the case of the super-sport’s fan which is a less serious form of what we are talking about, we need to recognize that their world is disconnected from having any true emotional connection with anything real accept for an artificial identity with an artificial reality. 

In the more serious case, the one that has been created by the ugliness of our culture and society in the United States, we have to face that. Everyone one of us, has a role to play in the behaviors that has resulted in the looting and rioting that is going on in the United State. Much of this comes from not understanding another group’s lived experience, and often times another group’s limited experience with another group. Two psychological and cognitive mechanisms inhibit us from understanding each other. 

The first is the ultimate attribution error and the second if the self-confirmation bias. I start with the ultimate attribution error, which is the fallacy to assume that the majority of other people have the same thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives that I (you) do as an individual, and those few that do not must have something wrong with them. They, those others, must be stupid, uninformed, or must be “brain washed” by some other person. This fallacy, sets us up to believe that my identity and the people I identify with are always right and knowledgeable. And leads some members of a group -especially those who lack autonomy from their group identity – not to see certain privileges or fallibilities of that group. 

The second thinking error is the self-confirmation bias. This occurs when a person thinks their ideas, knowledge, and beliefs are so correct that they ignore, deflect, and sometime unconsciously do not even see counter information and experiences that challenge their ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. Yet information that confirms their ideas, knowledge, and beliefs are often amplified and many time exaggerated to reinforce their world view. How in a country with so many different views and with a cultural history based on a division based on racial and skin color can we overcome these two psychological processes? 

Overcoming these issues, has to come from what is known as a superordinate psychological/social process. Superordinate means something that supersedes the needs of a group and requires groups to work together towards a common goal or meaning. An example of this is for a few years after 9/11 we saw the lowest rates of hate crime and discrimination, for the past 30 years in the United States. Why? because the United States had a superordinate goal: rebuild the country and find out who hurt us. Division between us slowed and we came together for a common purpose. It was not until 9/11 once again was made about race, “middle eastern Muslims” that  racism and group based hate crimes once again started to rise again in the United States. Indeed once it was made racial, prejudice in United States against any minority group, had a huge rebound effect. Finding this superordinate goal and purpose requires us to overcome our own self-serving biases and knowing we all think differently, but we all have the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness that is not defined by a particular group or a particular power. 

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COVID-19 Loneliness and the Authentic Self

Recently the American Psychological Association released a report that overall during the COVID-19 crisis there was a reduction in the overall loneliness rates in the United States. In this audio Dr. Peterson provides a explanation of why this may be through a person’s authentic identity that the home and family brings, and how our outside world often requires us to dehumanize and depersonalize our world, which may be why pre-COVID-19 existence was more lonely.

COVID-19 Loneliness and the Authentic Self

This audio can be heard and downloaded on Apple Podcast at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-self-and-identity-podcast/id1525248251

Disclaimer: This audio only talks about one potential source of depression and anxiety during this time. It is important to note that due to a the current social and political unrest there are several situational sources. Additionally, with all human conditions there is always the potential of underlying biological mechanisms that trigger depression and anxiety.