Why We Are Afraid to Speak Up

The “Spiral of Silence”
(Public Opinion Theory By Elizabeth Noelle-Newman)

 
A few days ago, I wrote an article about the Abilene Paradox, how a group can end up doing precisely what they are opposed to because everyone was afraid to speak up.

To prevent this from happening, CEOs and managers need to encourage an atmosphere where it is okay to speak up against the predominating opinion.  This can prevent the Abilene Paradox from taking an organization down the wrong path. 

 However, this is not an easy task, I mentioned, because of another well-known phenomenon called the “Spiral of Silence.”

Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann studied our interdependent, crowded, and information-saturated society and used extensive research to develop the “Spiral of Silence” theory of public opinion, a theory that explains the public opinion process, beginning from an individual level.

Although her theory is directed towards society and public opinion, I like to apply this theory to the corporate world and group communication.  I have seen this in action in corporations, families, the classroom, clubs, and even relationships. 

The most shocking discovery that Noelle-Neumann found was that people fear isolating themselves from society or their group, and this fear overrides everything else.
She believes that: “ To the individual, not isolating himself is often more important than his own judgment.”  EVEN if he or she believes something is wrong.

This means that voicing an opposition opinion, or acting in public accordingly, incurs the danger of isolation.   So this often keeps dissenting individuals quiet, even tolerating things in which they are opposed.  When I teach this in my workshops, I always add that this explains why so many people tolerated the civil rights inequalities in the 1950s, Apartheid in South Africa, and even the power of the Third Reich -- creating Nazi Youths -- everyone in the German public was afraid to speak up for fear of punishment and isolation from the group.   

On that note, the fascinating thing about this phenomenon is that those individuals who are brave enough to stand up and voice their dissent are the ones that create true change in our world.   Think of what Rosa Parks thought when she saw the other Blacks accepting the norms of sitting in the back of the bus.  She made a brave move and stood up and voiced her dissent.  Only when she did this, did other people stand up in agree.  This launched the civil rights movement, and eventually changed our world.   The same courage can be said for Nelson Mandela, who stood up and voiced his opposition against Apartheid, and faced the greatest penalty of isolation we know -- 27 years in prison.  But his courage also changed the world. 

Noelle-Newman says the active role of starting a process of public opinion formation is reserved to the one who does not allow himself to be threatened with isolation.  But it’s a risk, isn’t it?

So I believe that by learning about the “Spiral of Silence” we can learn to overcome it and help to bring real progress in our community, our organization, our schools and our families.  What we need is courage.  (Stay tuned for more articles regarding “Communicating Courageously.”
 
Have you faced the “Spiral of Silence” in voicing your opinion in your workforce, your community, your associations or clubs, your family?  Start today to notice what you do not agree, and speak up.  This takes courage.  But change cannot happen without it.

Noelle-Neumann theorizes that the tendency of one person to speak up and another to be silent rather than risk losing group membership “starts off a spiraling process, which increasingly establishes one opinion as the prevailing one.” 

Applied to public opinion, Noelle-Neumann found in her research that white men, younger persons, and the middle and upper classes are generally the most likely to speak out, the most vocal in our society.  So what is acceptable or ‘okay’ is formed by the loudest, strongest, and most vocal of our groups.  (I always snicker here, and ask my students -- what if middle-aged Black women were the most vocal, instead of young white men and the upper class -- and their opinions were established as the prevailing one?  I always get hoots of laughter from the Black men in the class when I ask this!)  But think about it!   Imagine how our priorities would be different!  Or, what if Native American grandmothers established our predominant opinion?  Just some food for thought about the “Spiral of Silence” in our world.

 

What is Globalization?

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer:     Princess Diana's death.
Question: How come?
 
Answer: An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgianwho was drunk on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change thespelling) followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles; treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines.
 
This is sent to you by an American, using Bill Gates's technology, and you're probably reading this on your computer, that use Taiwanese chips, and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.
 
That, my friends, is Globalization!

Crossing Borders into New Communication Frontiers

by Lisa Jeffery, MBA, MA

The internet has taken hold of our world faster than we can catch up with it. Statistics show that workers lose an average of six minutes a day of productivity, dealing with email alone. This adds up and effects organizations of all sizes. And the use of websites are evolving and changing rapidly. It was just some two years ago that blogs emerged, and some professionals have found them more effective than costly websites. They are becoming a way for us to communicate - an expression of ourselves, just like we do when we talk. Even interpersonal relationships have changed because of the internet, as couples have met, and developed a relationships, and many relationships have been destroyed through emails (snooping from exes, discovering infidelity through email, etc.) This is powerful stuff!

So things are changing, evolving, and we are developing new ways to communicate, to express ourselves, to conduct business, to interact.

But the evolution is not just taking place on the internet and our exterior worlds, it's taking place in our brains too. As we write more, use our eyes more for our increasingly visual world, information is traveling regularly through our brain in ways that it did not before, changing the dendrites and the "grey matter" that makes up the executive center or our brain. Studies show that our 21st century eyes view as many as 2,000 visuals per day. Our eyes have 100 million sensors in the retina and only five million channels from the brain to the retina, so much information is filtered out from our conscious mind, but nonetheless is stored in our memories. Will this disparity in sensors and receptors in the visual information age begin to change our brains? Also the increase in writing to communicate through emails regularly works out our brain like a workout at the gym.

Young children are developing new parts of their brain at a very early age. The book The Indigo Children mentioned that because of the change in the way we use our brains, young children are able to use more of their of their brains. Published in mid 1999, this book by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober is describes The Indigo Child as "a boy or girl who displays a new and unusual set of psychological attributes, revealing a pattern of behavior generally undocumented before. This pattern has singularly unique factors that call for parents and teachers to change their treatment and upbringing of these kids to assist them in achieving balance and harmony in their lives, and to help them avoid frustration."

Carrol and Tober answer many of the often-puzzling questions surrounding Indigo Children.

1. Can we really be seeing human evolution in kids today?
2. Are these kids smarter than we were at their age?
3. How come a lot of our children today seem to be "system busters"?
4. Why are so many of our brightest kids being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)?
5. Are there proven working alternatives to Ritalin?

Throughout this work, they bring together some very fine minds (doctors, educators, psychologists, and more) who shed light on the Indigo Child phenomenon." http://www.indigochild.com/

I believe that this phenomenon is why CNN, and later all the major television networks, changed their format to have three or four things going on at once on the screen. While the older people complained that this was too confusing, too messy, the younger people were pleased because their minds were accustomed to three or four things going on at once. Could this be a change in human evolution?

So something bigger than us is happening here! So we are on the cusp of becoming more evolved human beings. But we are not quite there yet, which sometimes makes it difficult to deal with all of this.

If you feel overwhelmed from the rapid increase in technology, and the overload in your brain, don't despair -- You are part of a trail-blazing generation at the opening of the 21st century. You are a border crosser into a new level in evolution and communication. While it may seem overwhelming, there are ways to help take control over our new level human communication now -- and to adjust to make the transition less confusing.

Living in an information age requires us to take more control over our lives, by deciding how to use new technologies. The increase use of "ethnotronics" -- smaller, more personal technologies that have interactive cultural characteristics -- have literally altered how we perceive time and space. They have changed our lives. Ethnotronics include cell phones, the new trend in Personal Communications Systems (PCSs) cameras and copiers in our cell phones, etc. We can use these time and space-shifting things to make our life confusing or we can learn to manage them. Call forwarding, call waiting, instant messaging have all created conditions that reinforce certain behaviors.

Here are my four crucial tips for dealing with the new frontiers in communication in the information age. :

1. Don't let multiple lines and call waiting effect your priorities, your relationships - both professional and personal. Remember the telephone is there for YOUR convenience, not the caller's. Don't be a slave to your phones and the internet.
2. Learn to limit distractions in your communication. Instant messaging while you are doing something else, and cell phone interruptions while you're having a face-to-face conversation might not be the best way to manage new technologies. Remember, you are in control, they are not, and simply turn them off and put yourself first. Set up some structures and draw boundaries for the use of technologies in your life to achieve balance. Have that lunch with your friend - take cell phone calls later.
3. Work to improve your listening skills. With so many technologies, ethnotronics and distractions we have forgotten that listening is not a passive activity it is an active activity. Listening skills can be learned and practiced. Learning them can make a huge impact on your life. (See my Listening Skills workshop and articles to come.)
4. Avoid Mind/Communication overload. Give your mind a break. The left side of the brain tires easily, and passes the job to right side, making it harder to concentrate, creating a type of narcotization. If you have not learned some type of mediation or relaxation technique, learn one! (See my suggestions later) This will help you to clear your mind from all this noise in the information age, to sort it out and refuel!

Back From Vacation

Have you seen no new updates, no new articles lately? Sorry for the delay, I was attending a writers/poets workshop on the island of Spetses, Greece. "The Muses Workshop," sponsored by the Athens Center, was held in June and July. So instead of updating my blog, I was crossing borders into new frontiers into classic Greek literature and poetry, and writing a great deal of new poetry in exciting classic forms. Studying Homer's Odyssey provided lots of new examples for my Intercultural Communications workshops -- Because, just like Odysseus, aren't we all on an exciting journey back to Ithaca, confronting all sorts of interesting foreign monsters?

Stay tuned, because this weekend, I'm headed for Ocho Rios, Jamaica to give workshops on Speech Communication for the Professions for Nova Southeastern University. This workshop will include the basics of communication, interviewing and negotiating skills, and public speaking -- for both individual and group presentations.