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ocial contagion is the theory of how ideas and emotions spread and go viral. It'€™s important to recognize this tendency, especially within a company culture. If a few employees become disengaged, the negativity can spread across the entire company quicker than you expect. This concept was illustrated in a University of Michigan study monitoring the spread of eating disorders on college campuses. It'€™s important to look for early signals and work proactively to reverse the impact.

Groupthink can be particularly dangerous, so it'€™s important to remain alert. It'€™s tricky, because team-building activities are beneficial, but too much cohesion can be detrimental. We'€™ve all seen '€œcliques'€ develop in schools and other social environments '€” that'€™s essentially minimal group paradigm in action.

It'€™s about arbitrary distinctions between groups (for example, differences in the color of clothing) that lead people to favor one group over another. Of course, harmful cliques can develop among adults in corporate cultures. However, leaders can avoid this by encouraging team building that reaches across arbitrary boundaries, and supports everyone as part of the same, larger group.

Initially, I assumed this was about people who lie on the couch while browsing on Facebook '€” but it'€™s really much more interesting than that.

Over 100 years ago, a study found that people put in 50 percent less effort when playing tug of war in a team of eight compared to playing it alone. In other words, we tend to slack off when our efforts can'€™t be distinguished from the efforts of our teammates.

The Stanford prison experiment is one my favorite lessons from the realm of psychology. In a Stanford University experiment, participants were assigned roles as prisoners and prison guards in a pseudo-prison environment. The guards adapted to their new roles much quicker than expected, and became very authoritative and abusive toward prisoners.

Erika Sharon
Jakarta