Fantastic post! I knew that my social environment was super-important for guiding my actions, but this made me realize I might once again have underestimated its significance.
Every class has its clown, because “class clown” is a strong, viable niche (even if it’s not particularly wide) — a stable attractor in the social behavior-space of a classroom. If a class doesn’t yet have its clown, someone will inevitably find that making a wisecrack is rewarded (with social approval in the form of laughter), and before you know it, he or she will be cracking wise at every opportunity.
But like I said, there are far more niches, which are far more nuanced, than just the ones we’ve learned to identify by name. “Alpha,” for example, doesn’t refer to a single niche, but rather a whole class of niches that happen to share a particular feature (being on top). There are many different types of “alpha” niches — leading by intimidation, leading by example, leading by wits and with humor, servant leadership, having an inherited titled (kingdoms etc.), leading with the support of the people, etc.
When it comes to personality, what’s important is the fit between the niche and who you ‘naturally’ (albeit tentatively) are. A lot of personality development involves growing into a niche, but some niches fit better than others, so it’s also important to find the right niche. This is where the body and basic cognitive tendencies come into play. There’s a lot of variation among children (even before adolescence forces them to specialize even further), so it’s important to find a niche that plays to one’s unique strengths.
I had an extremely nerdy friend group in college, which led to weird effects since we couldn’t all be “the nerd”. One of my friends still gets annoyed at the fact that she became the “jock” and the “sensible person”, just because she was slightly less helpless at life than the rest of us. Her reaction seems to be something like, “I’m for real actually a nerd, why are you making me play this other role??”
Fantastic post! I knew that my social environment was super-important for guiding my actions, but this made me realize I might once again have underestimated its significance.
I’m reminded of Kevin Simler’s “Personality: An Ecosystems Perspective”:
I had an extremely nerdy friend group in college, which led to weird effects since we couldn’t all be “the nerd”. One of my friends still gets annoyed at the fact that she became the “jock” and the “sensible person”, just because she was slightly less helpless at life than the rest of us. Her reaction seems to be something like, “I’m for real actually a nerd, why are you making me play this other role??”