How well are we adapting? And where do young people fit in?.

In 105 BC, gladiators captivated the masses, their fights becoming the most attended events in ancient Rome. Gladiators who achieved popularity, recognition, and ultimately survived, became the forerunners of today's influencers. But that's not the only parallel; in the context of social proof, which will be mentioned later, marketers of the time recognized the gladiators' popularity and influence and used their reputation to promote products. The fact that a famous gladiator endorsed a particular product provided social proof, confirming its value and importance to consumers.

Why should today be any different, when human psychology was already at play back then?

Newspapers were once bought and read for hours; today, newspapers are neither bought nor read, but scrolled through. While scrolling, nobody thinks about the fact that reading is one of the most complex activities a person engages in. Why is that?

When reading, we must decode a series of symbols (letters) into meaning. This process involves recognizing words, understanding their phonetic structure, and connecting these elements into meaningful units like sentences. Decoding requires knowledge of linguistic rules, vocabulary, and the ability to process information quickly. Once we decode words, we must understand their meaning in context. This includes interpreting individual words, understanding grammatical structures, establishing connections between sentences, and creating mental images and conceptual models based on the text. Reading comprehension requires our active participation, which includes asking questions, forming impressions, drawing conclusions… The next step is contextual understanding, and finally, reading is a cognitive burden because it demands our attention, memory use, inference, comparison, evaluation…

Sir Antony Jay: “The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions.”

Our research shows that in Croatia, people don't understand what they read. If you don't believe us, there's plenty of more relevant research on the topic.

Today, it's increasingly important how well we ask ourselves good questions. Digitalization inevitably brings changes and demands various adaptations from us. However, in the context of all these changes and our habits, the question is how well we understand ourselves, how well we are adapting, or if we just think we have adapted…?

Not so long ago, we experienced crowd psychology once or twice a year, at a concert or sporting event. Today, we experience crowd psychology on a daily basis.

What is crowd psychology? Crowd psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the behavior, attitudes, and perceptions of individuals when they are part of a large group or crowd. It focuses on how people change their behavior and attitudes under the influence of group dynamics and social interactions within the crowd. One of the key concepts in crowd psychology is “deindividuation,” which refers to the reduction of individual awareness and responsibility when people are part of a crowd. In the past, this could lead to communal singing at a concert because, well, we got carried away, or to a mass brawl at a game, because, again, we got carried away. Generally, crowd psychology would lead to behavior that an individual would not exhibit when alone.

When we talk about the change of attitudes and perceptions of individuals under the influence of group dynamics in the context of social networks, masses can form and act online, often with greater speed and reach than in traditional forms of communication. Such fast and massive communication can have a strong impact on perceptions and our behavior. Ideas, news, opinions, and trends spread and can shape the attitudes, beliefs, and (re)actions of individuals.

None of what has been written here should seem catastrophic, but it is important to say that digitalization, which includes the rapid advancement of technology and digital media, brings numerous changes in the way we live and communicate. Patterns of digital interaction, rapid information availability, and changes in communication channels pose new challenges for our evolutionarily shaped psychological functions.

And then we wonder why we are increasingly psychologically and socially anxious. Why has an unannounced phone call become disruptive and unpleasant, and why have we started feeling more comfortable with emails and messages that we "can control"?

We can also consider whether we are the cause of the popularity of TikTok, Instagram, Tinder… or if we are the consequence.

Is this why it's hard to be human today, and even harder to be a child?

Today, it's increasingly difficult to understand people and what's happening around us, but ultimately, it's becoming harder and harder to understand ourselves. The next problem we might have is forming opinions or attitudes.

One article discussed the complexity of the decision-making process; however, to even get there, one needs to have an attitude, a formed opinion.

The Process of Opinion Formation

The process itself is a complex phenomenon involving several factors: cognitive, emotional, and social. Psychology has long studied these processes and offers various theories and approaches to how people form opinions.

Cognitive Theory

Today, we distinguish cognitive theory, which focuses on the role of cognitive processes such as perception, attention, memory, thinking, and problem-solving in opinion formation. According to this theory, people actively process information, using schemas and mental representations to create and change their opinions. The "problem" with cognitive theory is that perception is involved.

In both private and business life, we often encounter different opinions among people, and this generally has nothing to do with how well or poorly we know them, because one of the problems is perception.

Definitionally, perception should refer to our ability to receive and process information from our environment, while perspective reflects our personal interpretation and value system used to understand the world around us. Of course, the problem lies precisely in our abilities to receive and process information, and in our personal interpretation and value system-which are absolutely different and unique to each person.

It's also important to note that perception is the process of recognizing, organizing, and interpreting data received from our senses. This is highly individual and depends on various factors such as our experiences, expectations, and sensory capabilities. And the problem isn't in different attitudes or opinions, but in how much perception has done its job. That's why today, it's almost impossible for people to change their minds; they need to change their perception. Changing perception is often associated with changing people's minds. People tend to change their attitudes, beliefs, and opinions based on new information, experiences, and a shift in perspective.

However, it should be noted that changing one's mind is not always simple or linear. People can have different degrees of openness to change, and it may take time, repeated information, or additional arguments to achieve a real change of mind.

Changing minds can also be a complex process because people tend to defend their existing views and maintain consistency with previous beliefs. However, with the right arguments, appropriate evidence, and open dialogue, it is possible to encourage a change of mind in people.

Social Cognitive Theory

Next is social cognitive theory, which explores the influence of social context on opinion formation. This theory emphasizes the importance of social learning, modeling, and the perception of other people in shaping our attitudes and beliefs. It also deals with self-regulation and self-efficacy as key factors in opinion formation.

If the "personal problem" with cognitive theory was perception, here the next equally personal problem is our self-regulation. Self-regulation is a psychological process that refers to an individual's ability to consciously control and regulate their thoughts, emotions, behavior, and reactions to achieve their goals. This process includes managing impulses, delaying gratification, overcoming temptations, and maintaining focus on long-term goals.

Self-regulation involves the ability to shift attention from immediate temptations and distractions to more important tasks and goals. It also includes the ability to control our reactions and delay instant gratification to achieve long-term goals. Well-self-regulated individuals can suppress the desire for immediate pleasure or satisfaction or an uncontrolled reaction to achieve larger and more important goals. Self-regulation also includes our ability to recognize, accept, and regulate our own emotions. This implies consciously managing emotions to achieve emotional balance and respond appropriately to various situations. No less important, it includes setting goals and the motivation to achieve them. Well-self-regulated individuals have clearly set goals and the motivation to achieve them. And finally, self-reflection and monitoring. Self-reflection implies objectively evaluating one's own behavior and comparing it with set goals, and adjusting strategies if necessary. This also includes monitoring, a human skill that some have more developed than others, and it refers to our ability to frequently monitor ourselves and evaluate our own effectiveness, that of other people, in order to introduce improvements or take corrective actions.

Behavioral Theory

The next theory to be mentioned, and the one closest to me, is behavioral theory. Behavioral theory emphasizes the role of external factors and experiences in forming opinions (hence my frequent statement that humans are environmental and experiential beings). According to this approach, opinion is seen as the result of conditioning and learning based on previous experiences. Behavioral theory highlights the importance of external influences and consequences in shaping our attitudes and beliefs.

Behaviorist principles are particularly useful on social networks, through a system of positive incentives where likes, comments, and shares can be considered a form of positive reinforcement that will motivate users to continue interacting with others, etc. Also, social media algorithms use feedback on user behavior to tailor content and condition the user. The principle of repetition creates habits, while conditioning through social norms can be problematic, where users notice that other users are engaged in certain behavior, such as participating in specific challenges or trends, which can encourage their participation to fit into the community.

These are all types of conditioning, and today we distinguish between classical and operant conditioning. Operant conditioning, developed by B.F. Skinner, is based on the consequences of behavior. According to this concept, behavior that results in a reward is more likely to be repeated, while behavior that results in punishment is less likely to be repeated. This form of conditioning plays an important role in shaping opinions because it is based on the principle of consequences. In any case, conditioning provides us with a framework for how previous experience shapes our thoughts, opinions, attitudes, and reactions.

Understanding

Recent research shows the important role of past experiences in shaping our current perception. According to research conducted using an EEG device, the brain has a visual bias that combines past and present stimuli, resulting in a perception that often represents a distorted image of reality. The study found that the visual part of the brain, the occipital cortex, retains traces of past images, reinforcing perceptual bias. The brain thus combines current sensory information with past data, creating an "average" version of past and current images, thereby constructing its own version of reality. This research emphasizes that the brain is not just a "receiver" but also a "creator" of reality. Our perception is often a distorted representation of the outside world, rather than a faithful reproduction. And then we talk about VR, or virtual reality :)

Scientists believe that this perceptual bias arises from a mismatch between the brain's limited "computational resources" and the abundance of stimuli bombarding our senses. Distortion helps the brain find regularities and makes the outside world more predictable and manageable. Indeed, a study conducted by researchers at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) reveals that our estimation of the number of objects in a group can be impaired based on the number of objects we have previously seen.

These results highlight an important aspect of past perceptual bias: our brain combines current sensory information with past information, creating an “average” image of the past and present in the early stages of visual analysis.

Today's digital age offers us exposure to a vast amount of information from various sources, including social media, online portals, and fast news. An excessive amount of information can make it difficult to filter and understand what's essential. The complexity of the contemporary world, the technologies we use, and the economic, political, and social aspects need no further elaboration. Also, contemporary society is often marked by polarization and ideological divisions. People may be busy defending their views and worldviews, which can hinder an open understanding and acceptance of basic things that do not fit into their previous beliefs.

What is particularly concerning, however, is the lack of critical thinking. Today, many people lack the time or habit to critically evaluate the information presented to them. This deficiency in critical thinking can lead to a superficial understanding and acceptance of things without deeper consideration.

Following up on the mentioned perception and perspective, it is important to state that different systems of consciousness (sensory consciousness, our working memory, emotional consciousness, autobiographical consciousness, executive function system) in the brain compete with each other to surface and gain conscious recognition. Depending on which idea or perception appears at a given moment, that particular idea becomes dominant and comes to the fore. But is it the “right” one?

Although we experience a unified, consistent, and integrated “self,” what happens in the background is a completely different story.

Furthermore, technological evolution is far faster than human evolution, so before the brain adapts to all the changes around it, it develops temporary control or defense mechanisms. One of these is information filtering. Thus, our mind has the ability to filter information so that we can focus only on what we consider essential for our functioning. As we go through daily situations, our mind automatically filters out information that is not immediately relevant to us, which is why we’ve all found ourselves countless times arriving home, even driving there, yet missing a whole segment of time. We filtered out all traffic lights, intersections… but was that really so unimportant?

It is important to note that there is no clear logic or rule about what our mind will filter, because each person remembers and interprets things in their own way. This means that each individual has their own personal filters and way of processing information.

In today's world, our minds are faced with a lot of information and distractions, especially through social media. With social media, our perception changes – they become a platform where a curated image is constantly displayed, and friends become an audience.

Adaptation and brain neuroplasticity will lead to our brain's filters developing and working to restrict access to us. Over time, it will become increasingly difficult to pass through that filter and reach us. It is hard to predict what the final outcome of this information filtering process will be, but people who manage to adapt and “retain and process” information will find ways to exclude the irrelevant and focus on the essential. We already see examples of people who function exceptionally well within a certain spectrum, such as autistic savants who have extraordinary abilities to solve complex problems and develop new concepts.

In the future, individuals who can effectively manage information and adapt to this filtering process may become exceptionally valuable. Although such individuals will constitute a small percentage of the population, their value will be extremely high.

Therefore, before labeling someone as a shallow person, consider whether they have adapted.

And so, with an increasingly difficult time understanding what’s happening around us, it’s not surprising if we don’t understand ourselves, our actions, our thoughts…

With a lack of self-understanding, external influences, conditioning, and validations, we reach a point where, for example, the kinesthetic sensor in live social interaction becomes unpleasant. And we are increasingly afraid in a world that has never been safer.

Would we be afraid if we weren't conditioned by the psychoses fed to us by the media?

Defense Mechanism

In addition to filtering, the human brain uses another, this time, built-in survival mechanism. It's called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs). The conclusions are based on research by Daniel G. Amen, who put 200,000 subjects through functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) are negative thoughts or beliefs that automatically arise in our brains in certain situations. They typically stem from our brain's innate survival mechanism and tend to be negative, critical, or pessimistic in nature.

ANTs typically occur without conscious effort or control and can significantly impact our emotional state and behavior.

One of Dr. Daniel G. Amen's consistent messages was to be aware that our automatic negative thoughts are just thoughts, not facts. Our brain constantly scans and predicts, looking for patterns and recording the history of events. Unfortunately, we often get caught listening to these thoughts instead of asking ourselves if they are truly facts. Even worse, these ANTs are often linked to the voice of our harshest judge – our inner critic. An additional difficulty is that the voice of our inner critic is often the voice of a parent, teacher, or authority figure from our childhood. That’s when we first felt the sharp bite of criticism, and a strong neural connection formed due to the intense emotions of rejection and pain we experienced then for the first time.

And that's why self-understanding, cognition, metacognition, conditioning, affirmations, validations…

Why is self-understanding difficult?

Today, the fundamental question is how much we even manage to deal with ourselves, and how preoccupied we are with daily tasks. How much will, strength, and time do we have at the end of the day to perform quality introspection and draw conclusions from it? Also, introspection should, among other things, analyze our attitudes, thoughts, and decisions. The fact is that some are more, and some less, thought out. Also, the question arises as to how much of what is “in our heads” is the result of ourselves, and how much is due to various conditionings.

Difficulties in understanding oneself can stem from several reasons:

One problem is the complexity of the human psyche. One of the primary reasons is the extreme complexity of the human psyche, which consists of conscious and unconscious processes. Conscious processes refer to what we are currently focused on and aware of, such as our current thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Unconscious processes, on the other hand, refer to hidden or automatic patterns of thinking, defense mechanisms, and deeper motivations of which we are not always aware.

The next thing that can be, in a way, an aggravating circumstance is conflicting desires and needs. For example, we may want to achieve certain goals, but at the same time, we face internal conflicts, fears, or limiting beliefs that prevent us from achieving them.

Then we must be aware of our emotions, which is not always simple. Emotions are an integral part of the human psyche and can be extremely complex. We feel a wide range of emotions, from joy and happiness to sadness, fear, anger, and stress. Emotions can be related to our internal states, experiences, values, and interpersonal relationships.

The next challenge in self-understanding is self-acceptance and self-assessment. Self-acceptance refers to accepting oneself completely, with one's virtues, flaws, strengths, and weaknesses. This includes accepting all parts of oneself, including one's physical appearance, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and past actions, without judgment or trying to be perfect or meet external ideals. The latter can be particularly challenging today because we are more a result of others' expectations than our own.

Defense mechanisms like repression, projection, rationalization, and denial are further obstacles to understanding. Reactivation (activating childhood strategies for coping with difficult emotions) which can trigger outbursts of anger or passive-aggressive behavior can be an additional aggravating circumstance. Our defense mechanisms will temporarily reduce emotional discomfort, but the long-term use of defense mechanisms will, very likely, have negative consequences for our emotional well-being and interpersonal relationships.

Ultimately, what we desire, or at least should, is introspection. In today's modern and fast-paced life, we often tend to neglect our own needs and feelings. A lack of time and attention directed towards ourselves can result in a superficial understanding of our own internal processes. Introspection refers to the process of reflection, self-observation, and awareness of one's own thoughts, feelings, experiences, and inner world in general. It is a deep introspective process that involves reflection on one's mental state, motives, values, goals, and personal development. It is an important "tool" with which we can become aware of our thoughts, beliefs, and behavioral patterns. This provides us with an opportunity to explore our emotions, motivations, and needs more deeply and to gain insight into our own strengths and limitations. By helping us to understand ourselves, it will contribute to personal development and crucial emotional regulation. Introspection sometimes cannot be done "correctly" due to our perspective, so a good choice can also be talking to someone or going to a quality coach.

After understanding ourselves, how we perceive and ultimately experience people, the environment, and everything around us also depends on external factors.

External Factors

External factors play an important role in our understanding of ourselves. Changes in the environment, society, and living conditions can influence our perceptions, values, and priorities. The evolution of the human organism, including the brain, can also play a role in how we perceive and understand the world around us.

To achieve a deeper understanding of ourselves, it is important to find a balance between internal introspective processes and observing the external factors that surround us.

I often used to say that man is an environmental and experiential being, and in most cases, perhaps a little clumsily and oversimplifying, I put human behavior into that context. However, the statement is not incorrect, but it is not fully elaborated. With that statement, I often wanted to emphasize that the environment and experiences are key factors in the formation and development of a person's personality, behavior, and consciousness. Man is a being conditioned by the environment in which he lives and by interactions with other people, animals, and things around him. The environment and experiences that a person experiences throughout life shape his perspective, values, and attitudes towards the world. Through this, I generally wanted to emphasize how important it is for all of us to maintain a "healthy living environment."

Given that my statement is not fully articulated, it actually represents one of the possible perspectives that point to the influence of the environment and experiences on the formation of human personality and behavior. Namely, man is a complex being that can be understood from various perspectives, including biological, psychological, sociological, cultural, and other perspectives. Each of these perspectives contributes to understanding man in a certain way. Thus, while the biological perspective emphasizes the influence of genetics and neurological processes on human behavior and personality, the sociological perspective points to the influence of social norms, cultures, and institutions on the formation of personality and (desired) social behavior.

Following this, sociologists like Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber considered social and cultural factors that shape human behavior and interactions with others, while on the "other side," psychologists Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson examined the influence of psychological processes and developmental stages on personality and identity formation.

Research has shown that human emotional and cognitive development and behavior are often closely linked to their environment and experiences.

Given that the process of opinion formation has already been mentioned, and that external factors were defined as influencers there, we will only mention the most common social ones.

• The principle of social proof refers to people's tendency to follow the actions of others, especially when we follow those we perceive as similar to ourselves.
• Conditioned behavior, or social proof, can be a powerful means of conditioning, where people adopt attitudes or behave in a certain way simply because the majority or an authoritative figure does. This can result in insufficient critical thinking and the adaptation of one's own attitudes to genuine beliefs and values.
• Minority influence. This is a cognitive error that stands in contrast to the principle of social proof. Minority influence occurs when people adopt attitudes or behave in a way contrary to the majority opinion or behavior, simply because a small but emphasized minority does so.
• Groupthink is the tendency for people to align their attitudes and behavior with the majority opinion to avoid conflict or rejection. This can limit individual thinking and creativity and result in conformity instead of authentic expression of one's own views.
• Social validation. People often seek affirmation and acceptance from others to feel secure and worthy. This need for social validation can influence our attitudes and behavior, leading to conformity with what others expect rather than our own beliefs and desires.
• Conformity is the tendency to align with the norms, rules, and expectations of society or the group we belong to, which can result in suppressing one's own ideas and values and adopting the majority's opinion.

When we talk about external factors, it is important to be aware of these cognitive errors and conditionings in order to free ourselves from their influence and promote individual thinking, authenticity, and understanding of our own attitudes and values. Critical thinking, reflection, and openness to different perspectives can help avoid these pitfalls and make informed decisions that reflect our true essence.

Cognition, Depth of Cognition, and Metacognition

Cognition and the formation of opinions, attitudes, and decisions are closely related, as cognitive processes are crucial in decision-making. Cognition refers to how the brain allocates and processes information, including processes such as attention, perception, memory, thinking, and reasoning.

• Information allocation is the cognitive ability to arrange information, things, or actions in a specific order or pattern according to certain rules.
• Attention can be divided into two categories: the ability to concentrate on a task without losing focus (selective attention) and the ability to switch between two or more activities or sources of information (divided attention).

These two cognitive abilities can today be reliably "calculated" through psychometric assessments.

All these processes are important in decision-making because the information a person gathers and how it is processed significantly influences the final decision.

There are various models of cognitive processes used in decision-making, including the cognitive hierarchy model, the cognitive load model, and the cognitive representation model. All these models are based on the assumption that people use different cognitive processes to process information and make decisions.

For example, the cognitive hierarchy model suggests that people use mental maps to organize information about a problem and then use heuristics to make decisions. Heuristics are quick and efficient ways to make decisions, but they can lead to errors in reasoning and decision-making. On the other hand, the cognitive load model emphasizes that people use attention and concentration to process information and then make decisions based on that information.

Alongside cognition, the depth of our cognition is also important. Depth of cognition refers to the level and complexity of information processing in the cognitive process. It refers to how a person processes, understands, and interprets information at a deeper, analytical level instead of a superficial one.

Depth of cognition includes the ability to analyze and synthesize information, find connections and causal relationships, apply critical thinking, understand context and deeper meanings, as well as reflection and awareness of one's own thoughts and insights.

When a person processes information at a deeper level of cognition, they tend to think critically, ask questions, consider different perspectives, evaluate consequences and implications, and draw well-informed conclusions. A deeper level of cognitive processing often leads to a more thorough understanding and better integration of new information with existing knowledge.

Depth of cognition is also related to metacognition, which is the ability to consciously understand one's own thinking and how information is processed. Metacognitive strategies allow individuals to reflect on their thoughts, evaluate their own understanding, and adjust their cognitive processes to achieve better results.

When we talk about metacognition, research shows that individuals with borderline personality disorder may have difficulties assessing their own effectiveness in performing tasks, as well as recognizing and solving problems. They also tend to overestimate their abilities and fail to adhere to metacognitive strategies such as self-control and planning, which can lead to poorer task execution.

Therefore, metacognition as an ability helps us to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, to adapt and improve our performance in various situations. When metacognitive ability is lacking, an individual cannot adjust their behavior, which can result in misjudgments, poor decision-making, and failure to achieve goals.

Conclusion

If you still think that it's not hard to be a human today, and even harder to be a child, and that there's no problem with forming attitudes, opinions, and conclusions even for a "finally formed person," let alone someone without experience and knowledge, then I'll just say that I haven't mentioned other contexts (due to the length of the article, I stuck only to the psychological ones). Historical context, socio-political tensions, social dysfunctions, media influence, and individual factors, as very important external factors, affect everything and everyone.