It is hard, living in a group.
Don’t get me wrong, I love living in Haiti with my team and Team 1010 Fierce. It’s amazing and encouraging to be so close to a group of such strong women of faith.
However, I’m starting to feel the death of my individualism.
Dramatic, sure, but hear me out:
In packing all our belongings for a year into a less than 50-pound backpack, we each have a very limited set of clothes. People have started passing clothes around, so it is starting to feel like we all have the same wardrobe.
At our past two ministry sites, we have had a cook who prepares all the meals. So, we all eat the same food and are subject to the same diet (unless we go out to the market and use our fledgling Creole skills to buy some fried plantains and picklies).
We sleep in small rooms crowded with bunk beds, our backpacks and clothes piled in the corners and on the empty mattresses. The compound is also pretty small, so even physically we don’t have much of a personal bubble.
We have even started picking up some mannerisms from the other members of the squad. For example, one girl says “for sure!” with this exaggerated, super sarcastic, hilarious tone of voice. Some of us have adopted that, and every time it’s said, someone laughs and says “oh! pulling an Allison!” It’s funny, truly; but there’s also a part of me that feels like i can never say “for sure”, even in the way that I *normally* say it, because people think it’s an imitation of Allison (not that there’s anything wrong with being like Allison!)
[This suggests Emergent Norm Theory, propsed by Turner and Killian, but I won’t get into that now.]
Our social and cultural cues are also morphing into the same stream as we have also been sharing our books and movies. One can only pack so many books or download so many shows on Netflix, so we are passing them around, taking turns, watching together.
Okay, I love sharing. I love being in close community with these women and I love their hearts for being so generous and open.
But it’s difficult… and weird! I feel like we are all turning into the same person, and as an individual who craves spontaneity and freedom, this agitates me.
In social psychology, “deindividuation theory” describes when an individual in a crowd loses his sense of self-awareness and adapts to a collective mentality. First described by Le Bon in 1895, it has undergone revisions and redefintions from psychologists such as Singer, Pepitone, Zimbardo, and Diener.
The theory itself is quite interesting, and suggests that people in groups lose their individual senses of awareness, and switch to antinormative, exaggerated behavior. In the group, the individual becomes more reactive to external (outside the self, inside the group) cues. The general concept, I believe, is somewhat applicable to the scenario of World Race groups. As we live life together, we adapt a collective identity and consciously work towards a common goal, resulting from cues from our surrounding environment. Having the same goal is quite helpful, seeing as we are all charged with the same ministry assignments. However, I think it also results in the diminishing of our awareness and attentivity to unique aspects of our individual personas that we enjoy or need to acknowledge.
A study by Nadler in 1982 broke members of a group into two categories: undifferentiated individuals, who conform to external cues set forth by the group, and self-differentiated individuals, who maintain their original perceptions and behaviors.
Diener stated that “deindividuated (undifferentiated) persons are blocked from awareness of themselves as separate individuals and from monitoring their own behavior”, as a result of internal, behavioral, and situational factors [Li].
Such members of a group develop stronger feelings of cohesiveness and liking for the group, and a lessened concern for the judgements of others, which are positive consequences. However, they also may experience extreme disinhibition, altered internal processing, and a decrease in self-regulation (the ability to guide one’s behavior through personal cognitive functions).
In all realness, there is nothing wrong with groups, or specifically, this group- J Squad. As Maslow proposed, the hierarchy of human needs include feeling a sense of belonging and inclusivity. I am insanely grateful for their support, wisdom, friendships, and for all that things that makes them who they are.
But I want to be an individual. I want to be me.
God created me in His own image (Genesis 1:27), fearfully and wonderfully He made me ME (Psalm 139:14), and designed a specfic plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11).
From this point forward, I am actively choosing to follow His intention for me, and to steward this body, and its passions and skills, fully.
God made me a girl who likes exploring foreign markets, runs for pleasure not for a workout, doesn’t eat super processed bread, doesn’t typically snack or nap, prefers shorts to skirts, considers the World Race to be normal life- just in different places, loves having long hair, is considerate and attentive to others, and who relates most to the Lord through trees and hiking.
[Who knows, maybe a dissertion shall follow in the coming months?]
Bibliography (sorry, no MLA format!)
Li, Brian. The Theories of Deindividuation. Claremont McKenna College, 2010.
https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/group/deindividuation/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm432
https://www.enotes.com/research-starters/emergent-norm-theory
