The power of influence
Brazil political scenery has changed in the past 10 years in a such way that in April of this year Brazil former President, Lula, was arrested. It was a huge milestone in the message of change that the people so much wanted to hear. Finally there was justice.
It was a epic moment in Brazil history. Never before a President was arrested but like many other moments in History, people tend to forget too easily and history becomes just past.
This is the current scenario of the next President election in Brazil. Lula, a former president, arrested, is a candidate to the presidency again and holds 39% of the intent of vote.
39% is a mind blowing number especially when you consider that the closest candidate to him has only 16%. Why a former President, a person that was convicted of a crime, arrested and is in jail has so much of the vote intent? Regardless if he can be elected or not (* Brazil law of clean profile) that is still a huge margin and there is something that can explain this: Influence.
There is a similar story, that I first heard on the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, that can explain this behavior of Brazil voters: The Chicago Doomsday Cult.
Dorothy Martin, a 54-year-old Oak Park housewife, was relaying information that she was getting from space, saying that the world would come into an end. Her influence was so intense that Dr. Armstrong, a well respected man of the time, among with other businessman and people of influence, joined her in this believe that the world would come to an end and they would be saved by an UFO that would pick them up.
As we know now the world didn’t come into an end and the UFO didn’t come. Dorothy couldn’t explain it and none of her followers as well and, when one would believe that this would be the end of it, well, it was quite the opposite. Instead of losing trust on Dorothy the group actually gained even more trust and started to prepare for more messages and a new doomsday.
I’m no Psychiatrist or Therapist but I believe that a similar phenomenon is what happening in Brazil right now but in a lot larger scale. Instead of the people losing trust or belief in Lula after his arrest they gained even stronger belief. This belief is set in a such way that you can hear excuses such as: He stole but he did something.
As absurd as it sounds, the influential power that Lula has on Brazil population is something way beyond comprehension and only proves that our brains can be easily conditioned to accept even the most absurd of the scenarios. Scenarios such as a former President, that was convicted of a crime and is now in Jail, can regain power with the blessing of 39% the voters of a country.
Needless to say that I strongly recommend the book above mentioned and, when it comes to the political and economical future of Brazil, one can only hope that the trend that set Lula and many others in jail keep going forward.
