3 Reasons Why You Agree When You Don’t Want to Agree – In Society

Why do we agree with someone when we really don’t want to agree?

What makes us say “yes” when we really want to say “no”?

What are the causes of these behaviors?

It all starts by understanding how we operate out of the 3 main circles of influence in our lives. They are Business (work), Social (society), and Personal.

In our last blog, we focused on Business (work).

Now, let’s look at the Social circle.

In the Social arena, there are 3 main reasons we might agree when we don’t want to.

#1. We don’t like disagreeing because most of us metabolize disagreement as conflict.

This is because, as a species, we survive and grow by collaborating with each other which means that we try to avoid disagreeing whenever we can. We have to get along.

The BIG difference between the Social arena and the Business arena is that in the Social arena we give ourselves permission to vehemently disagree with someone about specific subjects – their favorite sports team, politics, media or even the economy.

That’s because “disagreeing” with each other in these categories rarely leads to direct punishing consequences on any one person.

We just agree to disagree in these subjects – which, in the Social arena, might be considered a form of collaboration. This is also why we don’t consider this behavior risky.

#2. We expect respect from each other as human beings.

That’s because every person has a right to their opinion whether people agree with them or not.

When you disagree with someone’s opinion, the risk is that they see you as “invalidating” their opinion which they might interpret as disrespecting them as a person.

That’s why most of us are careful not to voice our disagreement even though we might actually disagree.

#3. It’s too much effort.

For most of us, it’s not worth disagreeing because the disagreement often leads to longer conversations that go nowhere, especially when discussing the specific subjects mentioned in point 2 above.

In our next blog, we will focus on why you agree when you don’t want to in your Personal circle of influence.