Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

interpretation contagion underlines first and for all that we are a body which is “...
made active by social relations because it is brought into being and mobilized by its
positioning in the interweaving in networks of human interdependence.” (Burkitt,
1999: 7).
Nowadays contagion is connected with the presence of mirror neurons in the human
body, a physiological condition for different possibilities to sympathize with other
people (Bien, 2007; Eren, 2009). To be a flawless consultant one is even advised to
read the body instead of hearing the words (Block, 1996).
I conclude that the process of coming to conclusions and recommendations by the
members of the coordination team can best be understood as a contagious process.
Four people who work together for quite a long time and who are assigned to recommend
new policy, agree rather easily without discussing or experiencing the contradictions
in their agreement. Especially in our informal open working style I suppose
contagion is a very effective ‘mechanism’ because in the situation as such I have not
experienced a form of strong coercion on me or the other members to conform to a
certain point of view. One could speak of echo contagion, in which un-conflicted
recipients reflect and imitate affects and behaviour (Levy and Nail, 1993) or of goal
contagion in which goals are inferred from other’s achievement-related behaviours
(Eren, 2009). In a way the members of the coordination team were examples for each
other.
A question remains if and how this non-coercive situation might harm the effectiveness
of the conclusions and recommendations as it leads to results which incorporate
incompatible perspectives. A question I have no answer for at this moment.
Avoidance of cognitive dissonance
However, if social contagion works, I still wondered how it works. Neither the working
of my mirror neurons nor that apparently I imitated the other members of the team,
explains that I stepped over, that during the four months of working together I sometimes
felt disappointed because what happened or was concluded did not match my
ideas.
So I pondered if contagion is possibly fuelled by experienced cognitive dissonance.
According to this concept people feel uncomfortable if they experience cognitive
dissonance. To avoid this nuisance people do something, react upon this feeling.
Apparently the reason for this uncomfortable feeling is that dissonance leads to a
blockade in acting, something that was already understood in the early days of American
pragmatism (Tedeschi et al., 1971). Cognitive dissonance is defined as having at
least two inconsistent cognitions about a subject and this inconsistency makes people
feel uncomfortable about them self and leads to a change of attitude. It sounds like a
paradox, but in general people avoid cognitive dissonance but under certain circumstances
this avoidance-behaviour leads to a change in an attitude (Festinger, 1957). In
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