Social Psychology by Jerry Silfwer

The Borg Complex refers to a spe­cif­ic form of tech­no­lo­gic­al determ­in­ism, but in my case, it’s also a psy­cho­lo­gic­al fallacy.

Online wan­nabeism is when a reg­u­lar social media user starts to mim­ic influ­en­cer man­ner­isms — without an actu­al audi­ence to address.

The use­ful idi­ot syn­drome is amp­li­fy­ing online hate. By over­com­pens­at­ing to sig­nal mor­al val­ues, we all stir up online aggression.

Ever heard of the Baader-Meinhof phe­nomen­on? It’s when you notice some­thing out of the ordin­ary, only to notice it again short there­after. And it’s weird.

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s well-doc­u­mented the­ory on the spir­al of silence (1974) explains why fear of isol­a­tion might serve the emer­gence of populism.

We should strive to be less stu­pid by study­ing logic­al fal­la­cies and cog­nit­ive biases. This is help­ful in PR, too, since we deal with human com­mu­nic­a­tion daily.

Survivorship bias is a com­mon fal­lacy; at times it’s bet­ter to study “the planes that didn’t return.” Don’t let the suc­cess of oth­ers dic­tate your strategy.

Scarcity makes us want rare things more — simply because they are few­er. By cre­at­ing arti­fi­cial scarcity, we use this power. But is it ethical?

Developed by Everett Rogers, the Diffusion of Innovations the­ory explains how, why, and how fast new ideas and tech­no­logy spread, par­tic­u­larly use­ful for PR.