Hey all. My background is psychology, economics and sales so i'll be posting up explanations and theories on why pick up is affective, potent and possible strategies based on theories. this post is about modern social psychology and how studies and theories are applicable to the game.

The Social Group Game - how do groups work, how is alphaing actually working?

The main theories I'm talking about are Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorsiation theory

Basic premise of SIT is that people have many identities with which they use to define themselves. These aren't salient all at once but are chosen from in different contexts to define who you are and gives you a set of acceptable behaviours or norms that can be accessed to decide how to react.

SCT is an extension of that theory. It says that by selecting an identity it then leads to you forming groups based on that identity and leads you to identify with one group and lets ingroup members define themselves relative to other groups. It essentially governs all interaction between group members and how they interact with out-group members.

For example, ever spoke to a person about football based on you being a man utd fan and them a liverpool fan? Was it heated? What if you'd had the same conversation about football but had brought up that you were both england supporters and discussed the world cup? Same people, different salient identity - completely different way of relating to each other in fact you could end up best friends.

this has again been extended to how groups choose leaders and make decisions. Leaders are both of the group and are the group. They have to be typical group members to be considered as leaders and their message or decisions have to be according to group norms and acceptable behaviours or else they make themselves members of the out-group and loose their ability to lead. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that a person can use to become the leader /Alpha. Choosing a group identity that includes the majority and which they are clearly a member is a good start. Demonstrating that being part of this group makes members better relative to other groups and that the alpha is the typical member of this group makes him a cnadidate as a leader. To make decisions it is merely a matter of communicating that the alpha's agenda is natural follow on from those group norms and anybody who is not following those norms is clearly an out-group member. A politician who was prolife was due to give a speach to a large gathering of doctors at the NHS. As you can imagine, being of the medical men and women, the vast majority of them were not what you may call open to his ideas. The politician was going to have to do some strong persuading to get any type of support from the crowd. he stood at the podium and the crowd hushed down as they waited for the man in the suit to tell them they were evil for their own beliefs... "I stand here today not as a member of parliament but as someone who can only claim to care. to care about our children, to care about our people and to care about our health..." As you can imagine the frosty reception didn't decintegrate immediately but the politician had definately chosent he correct ingroup, most doctors become so because they want to make people better and care about how others feel.

In relation to pick-up, creating common identities with the people we open should be a priority, essentially it is the hook point. Not just demonstrating interest, which is really just an extension on the time lease you have in the group, but full acceptance - ur one of them. Or more precisely they're one of you. One of them is an AFC tactic - conforming to their group norms. Alphas build their own groups and if you're the right kind of person - ur in - if you can tow the party line and the alpha IS the party (to paraphrase certain far right and far left political strategies of the 1940-50's). Strategies should work on two stages.

1. Create a group identity that includes all set but with the target either excluded as a group member or clearly a weaker group identification - demonstrated by your attitude to them.

2. Slowly change the group identity through your demonstrations of acceptable norms to include the target. or else fuck it - let her conform fully, she needs to if she wants to be in this crowd.

It's a rough social identity frame work of how pick up works but it's a start. For more information I recommend grabbing any psych text book from your library printed in the last 4 years and looking up SIT and SCT. In the back there will be references with the books and papers that the ideas are credited to. This is one I found:

Turner, J.C., Hogg, M.A., Oakes, P.J., Reicher, S.D. & Wetherell, M.C. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. New York: Basil Blackwell Inc

The big hitters in this field are all those people. Find anything by them and you'll be on the right path.