What would it mean to you if I asked you to be a part of my team?
It would mean more than you think.
Research from the social psychology literature shows that humans quickly form strong bonds with teams.
“It’s just plain comforting to be part of a group. There is mutual admiration, the feeling of being with like-minded friends, and cooperation beyond what could be expected from ore distant colleagues,” wrote Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass in their classic book, The Media Equation.
Perhaps not surprising. But media research has shown that we also quickly form teams with mediated communication — even a simple computer.
There’s No ‘I’ in Team
Imagine being given a task to perform on a computer. First, however, you’re assigned to the “blue team” and given a blue wristband. You’re then seated in front of a computer with blue trim around the monitor and a label that says “blue team.”
Would you perform differently in that condition than if you have been given the same wristband with no mention of team and had been seated in front of a “green computer”?
That’s exactly the experiment performed by Stanford University professors Reeves (my academic grandfather) and Nass.
So, would you have performed differently if you had been randomly assigned to the “team” condition?
If you’re like most people, you’d swear that you’d perform the same. That’s why experimental scientists, such as myself, bring you into the lab to test hypotheses. Despite your gut feelings, you’re a pretty poor judge of your cognitive behavior.
What happened? By now you probably guessed that there was a difference.
The “blue team” said they felt more a part of a team. I remind you that this was with a stand-alone PC computer, and these participants had often used a computer before.
That’s not especially surprising, but the participants also said they were more similar to the computer, and they said that the computer was friendlier.
Take just a moment to think about that.
These are very real, very human connections that we’re making with a piece of hardware. There was no alluding to the person who programmed the software or a human on another terminal. It was clearly just the computer.
And still participants formed an identification with the computer.
Not over weeks or months. In a few minutes. With an inert piece of plastic, metal, and silicone.
“People are not foolish because they like to work on teams; people are human because they like to work on teams,” wrote Reeves and Nass.
Using Social Media for Real Connections
If you’re so willing to bond with the computer itself, there’s no wonder that we can make such meaningful connections over social media.
Every time you leave a comment on this blog, or Tweet about it, we form a connection. A real, human connection. Hopefully the same happens when I comment on your blog or send traffic your way.
It’s our job to use this sense of identification to form better connections for ourselves and our clients. Use, not exploit, mind you.
Sure we’ve identified with brands through mass media advertising for years. But that’s a many-to-one conversation, and the consumer has no agency.
Today the consumer talks back. And by talking back — even by following back on Twitter — you’re helping your customer identify with your company in a real way.
We don’t easily turn our backs on teammates, and the fact that we so readily identify with others indicates that it’s an inherent need in us.
When you’re writing your next blog post, ad, or news release, think of the reader as a teammate. Think about forming real connections that make you both part of the same team.
Thanks for being part of my team for a few minutes.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, teammate.
Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
I'm a cognitive scientist and communication scholar who manages a psychophysiology lab at Texas Tech. I teach courses about the cognitive processing of media messages and research methods.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I really like the idea of writing as if you were writing to your teammates. After all, if you look at the broad spectrum we all are teammates in the game of life, aren’t we.
Susan/Unique Business Opportunity’s last blog post..Does One Size Fit All in Business Building?
Susan – Thanks for the comment.
It does stretch the teammate metaphor a bit in life, sadly. With finite resources, if an entire community acts as a team, then it creates an opportunities for cheaters to exploit the system.
And then there are rules, and us versus them. And then we don’t feel like a team again.
Ah, game theory.
Sam
Being part of team does create a special bond. Look at things like Army units or sports teams where people develop life-long intense bonds with each other. The teams help bring each other up. A big part of why this works is the opportunity to face adversity together, to do battle.
In the context of social media, how am I really forming a team with someone I a) don’t know and b) am not facing any adversity with? The analogy is useful at some level, but I think it’s going to be tough to achieve in reality.
Thanks, Brian.
You’re certainly correct that some situations intensify team identification. For instance, when Reeves and Nass told participants that their performance would be evaluated along with the computer, identification was much stronger.
But I think you’ve overlooked our shared adversity. We tend to socialize — even on social media — with similar individuals. For instance, I follow a bunch of professors. We’re all going through the crunch of getting ready for the semester now. We’re all preparing syllabi, etc. You need not be down the hall for me to understand and empathize with that.
Are we an army unit? Of course not. That’s much stronger. I certainly identify more strongly, for example, with students of the universities where I’ve earned degrees compared to students of the universities where I’ve worked.
Thanks for the comment!
- Sam