Social pressure: hypnosis to deal with it
It is sometimes said that nothing is more dangerous than a group of adolescent boys. This is because they pressure each other to do stupid things, such as jumping off a high bridge to take a nice swim. The result is that someone breaks his neck.
A mother who says "If he jumps off the bridge, what will you do?" in such a tone of "you won't do that anyway," doesn't come in at all. Of course he does, because he is just as tough and manly as his friend.
This is a well-known example of social pressure, but social pressure can also be very subtle, and before you know it, you're doing or saying something you don't really support at all.
So what about this, and what can you do about it? In this blog article, we take a closer look.
What is social pressure?
There are actually several forms of social pressure. Most people are familiar with the kind of social pressure that makes you behave a certain way because you want to fit in.
This is also known as conformity. You conform to “the group.” This is why it can be so frustrating to have “bad friends,” because before you know it, you’re conforming to drug use.
Another form of social pressure is the pressure you may experience when someone instructs you to do or not do something. You then conform to someone in authority, such as your boss or the "leader" of your group of friends. During the corona period, we also experienced much of this form of social pressure, if only because you put on a mouthpiece at the time.
It had other reasons, of course, but it did eventually come through an assignment from an authority.
This is also called obedience.
Finally, you can adapt your behavior and even your opinions to others, without coercion. This is also called docility[1].
What is interesting is that hypnotherapy also uses docility. In any case, it is something to check to see how "easy" or "hard" a hypnotherapy session with a client will go.
This immediately shows that social pressure is not necessarily bad, but we're going to take a look at the pros and cons anyway.
Risks of social pressure
Social pressure carries a number of “dangers.” It’s quite possible that, under social pressure, you might take risks you wouldn’t normally take. Consider, for example, driving through an unsafe intersection just because someone behind you is honking. A form of social pressure[2].
Social pressure can even cause you to see things differently than they really are. So you can say something is green when it is red under social pressure. There are situations where you can start to see things that are incorrect because of social pressure. Whereas you could have seen those things correctly if you were on your own[3].
Social pressure can therefore cause you to do things that are unsafe and prevent you from “seeing” the truth clearly.
Benefits of social pressure
However, social pressure can also have benefits. After all, we are social creatures.
Social pressure can make you feel like you “have to” or “should” do something. For example, you may notice that other people have expectations of you, and conforming to those expectations can help you be accepted by the group and earn a good reputation.
In this way, social pressure can also improve your survival, as you gain a good reputation for doing "the right thing."[4]
However, it is very important that you want to do as you should with a group of people who will help you move forward, and not a group of people who will actually help you into the abyss. Therefore, it is important to consciously choose who you hang out with.
Under certain circumstances, social pressure can improve your performance[5]. Consider, for example, athletes who perform well when cheered on by an audience, and competitions that go much worse when there is no audience present.
Dealing with social pressure
Dealing with social pressure also has a lot to do with setting boundaries. Whose opinions will you take to heart, and whose will you ignore?
What to do with that feeling of "what you should do" or "how it should be done."
There are a few things to wonder about, namely:
- Is my feeling right?
- Do I want to do as "this group" makes me feel how to do?
Knowing who you are, what matters to you, and how you want to be is therefore important for resisting negative social pressure.
To do this well, it’s important to have self-confidence and self-awareness.
An important part of hypnotherapy is strengthening one's self-confidence and ego, to properly "lock" changes in the subconscious. So that the positive change stays in one's life.
To this end, suggestions are used that, for example, strengthen self-esteem and self-worth.
Social pressure and setting boundaries
In addition, strengthening self-control is very important. Hypnotherapy, for example, is widely used to address addictions and prevent relapses. This is partly because it improves self-control, which helps individuals resist social pressure to use drugs[6].
Most addicts, in fact, experience a relapse when they return to their “old” social life and feel social pressure from their “friends” to take just one more pill or something similar.
In hypnosis, for example, you can practice how to say no to moments like these, or even how to consciously choose not to see certain people. You can visualize it, for example.
Personally, I've found that when you're really done with "that life," those people somehow stop coming into your life. When the switch flipped for me, I also stopped seeing people for years and encountered the very people who fit my new life goals. Which eventually led to the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.
Social pressure and being yourself
Feeling social pressure can also be a source of developing all kinds of social anxieties. For example, you get the feeling that everyone has an opinion about you if you don't do as "you should," and if your feeling about how "you should" is totally different from who you feel who you are can be very frightening.
Hypnosis, when combined with cognitive behavioral therapy, is very effective in treating all kinds of anxiety disorders[7] —including social anxiety.
This includes visualizations and relaxation exercises.
For example, you can "feel" social pressure in your body. A certain tension builds up when you have to comply with something that doesn't feel quite the way you would like it to.
That creates tension, and saying "no" or choosing for yourself can exacerbate that tension. After all, you are going against "the group."
By learning how to relax your body in these types of situations, you ensure that your body's tension does not amplify the mental effects. As a result, the anxiety remains small - or even gone altogether - and you can more easily be yourself.
The visualizations help you practice being yourself. For example, you can visualize how you feel and act at a party or when you have to give a presentation, for example.
The combination of hypnotherapy with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is also popular and helps people with social anxiety. In one case study, hypnosis with NLP was used to help a 20-year-old boy who suffered severely from social anxiety. Through therapy, they found out that the origin was in a trauma. Resolving the trauma, resolved the social anxiety.
NLP is also an important part of Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs.
Learn Hypnosis
So hypnosis can do a lot to help people with their self-knowledge, guarding boundaries and awareness of the influence of social pressure.
By learning hypnosis, you as a coach or hypnotherapist can help people be themselves and deal with social pressure. It doesn't matter if this is pressure to stay off drugs, or pressure to do things that just don't suit you.
Come to a free online master class for an introduction.
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