Are your words truly your own?

Cyranoids is a term coined by Stanley Milgram, inspired by the French play Cyrano de Bergerac (remember the Steve Martin movie, Roxanne? That was inspired by the French play). Milgram is known for his infamous obedience experiments (where subjects were instructed to deliver painful electric shocks to a patient in another room, when in fact there was no real shock. The patient was an actor. The experiment was designed to find out what people are willing to do at the request of a perceived authority figure).

This concept inspired a pair of social psychologists to run their own experiments (http://www.wired.com/2014/09/cyranoid-experiment/), which had unexpected results. When reading this article I thought of times when people close to me say things which seem to be the words of others, usually people of great influence in their lives, such as parents or partners. Often those phrases or opinions jar with their normal attitude or manner. Especially when I hear uncharacteristically small-minded utterances from usually open minded people. Who are they channeling?

I have also caught myself saying things that, upon reflection, don’t truly represent my own attitudes, but are inherited or simply echoes from my own fields of influence. It shocks me when this happens, but it shows how easily it is to let the hive mind speak for us.

I am interested in others’ experiences with hearing, or speaking, the words of others – especially when those words don’t honestly reflect the speaker’s own values or experience. Please share :)