Advocacy. Healthy Hives

• Author: Heidi K. Brown
• Pages: 28-30

ADVOCAC Y

Healthy Hives

Can replacing hierarchies with intergroup teams transform our profession?

BY HEIDI K. BROWN

It’s fun to consider the possibility

that the core of what humans

experience at rock concerts, group

tness classes and ash mob

dances might hold a key to improving

the functioning of our law rms, law

schools and legal communities. Social

psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s concept

of the “hive switch” might be the jolt

our profession needs.

Haidt denes the hive switch as “an

adaptation for making groups more

cohesive, and therefore more successful

in competition.” A hive switch is a phe-

nomenon that occurs when individuals

realize they have become part of and

fused within a collective; they transcend

self-interest and invest in something

larger than themselves.

For millennia, groups that have

gured out how to operate in synchro-

ny—rather than in isolated silos—have

achieved greatness. Psychologists like

Haidt have studied phenomena like

“muscular bonding”—how armies,

for example, forge bonds by physically

moving together in time. When humans

engage in synchronous or rhythmic

movements, their hierarchies, borders

and rigid delineations temporarily

dissolve. Similarly, group rituals (like

ash mob dances, festivals and carni-

vals) incite “collective effervescence”—a

feeling of electricity and elation that can

make people less selsh, more caring

and increasingly focused on communal

fusion rather than individuality. When

these experiences of “interlocking” ip

on the hive switch, we momentarily for-

get ourselves, trust others and coalesce.

If we want all individuals and com-

munities within the legal profession to

ourish at the highest level, we should

consider how a hive switch can trans-

form a group of people into a healthy

collective social organism rather than

just a loose assortment of detached

individuals.

Haidt emphasizes that too much

self-focus can hinder happiness; to real-

ly thrive, we should intermittently lose

ourselves in a hive.

Hive switch moments

I recall three poignant hive switch mo-

ments in my life. First, at a U2 concert

in Rome’s Olympic Stadium, fans coor-

dinated a surprise for the band. During

the song “With or Without You,” thou-

sands of fans held up colored pieces of

paper (taped beneath our seats) forming

a massive image of a Joshua tree (an

icon invoking the band’s 1987 album).

U2’s frontman, Bono, stopped in his

tracks, gripped, when he saw it.

edited by

BLAIR CHAVIS & LIANE JACKSON

blair.chavis@americanbar.org

liane.jackson@americanbar.org

Practice Matters

Photo illustration by Brenan Sharp/ABA Journal

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