The act of expressing our thoughts, preferences, and feelings is considered to be a way to convey our identity and self-hood. This makes freedom of expression a powerful indicator of individual liberty ( Kim & Sherman, 2007). The ability to express oneself without fear or favor is seen as such a fundamental aspect of human freedom that it is protected by the United States Constitution in the Bill of Rights under the freedom of speech. This protection under the constitution is among the ideals that set the United States apart from some other countries of the world where freedom of speech may not be so free. A study found that in Muslim-majority countries freedom of speech in these countries does not guarantee freedom of speech after the speech has been made (Dastgeer & Stewart, 2021).
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The question then arises of whether there is any limitation to free speech. Thinkers such as Milton, Locke, Montesquieu, and Mill certainly think so. They argue that the freedom of expression is the foundation on which democratic societies are built however, it finds limitations when it represents a definite risk of damage to the general public (Brüssow, 2022). Additionally, The UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights declares the right to form opinions, however, they also state that this right holds when said opinion respects the rights or reputation of others (Brüssow, 2022).
New Findings on Freedom of Expression
A new article published recently (Chopik et al., 2024) argues that people have a need to express themselves and, as such, the need to be unique from others. However, they also observed that this need might conflict with other needs, such as the need to belong and fit in. So, they carried out a study in which they hypothesized that people’s need to be unique has been decreasing in recent years.
The study was conducted online and nearly 1.5 million participants participated. Participants answered a questionnaire about their need for uniqueness that spanned 20 years (2000 -2020). This questionnaire had 32 questions that captured three indicators of the need for uniqueness: Lack of concern concerning others’ reactions, desire to not always follow the rules, and a willingness to publicly defend one’s opinion beliefs. The results of the study were intriguing.
They found that there had been an overall decrease in the need for uniqueness in more recent years (2020) when compared to earlier years (2000). However, where the study gets more interesting, is where they found that the decline was more pronounced on the indicators that assessed for the willingness of people to defend their views publicly which was a slight deviation from their initially held observation.
Implications
The study (Chopik et al., 2024) tried to answer the question of why uniqueness and the need to express oneself had been declining in recent years and came up with three possible explanations. First, they suggested that this decline could have been a result of the simultaneous increase in social anxiety in recent years. They argue that this increased social consciousness may make people more aware of their social status and as a result, be less willing to pursue uniqueness. Second, they postulated that this decline could also be because this need to be unique has been satisfied. They tell us that even with the advent of social media, which has provided a wide variety of ways to express oneself, people may have become increasingly less inclined to pursue uniqueness because they may have been pursuing their uniqueness in more natural ways in the early 2000s.
The third and final explanation they offer is that this need for uniqueness may have been declining because of fear of what others might say and the social isolation that comes with expressing opinions that may not be consistent with the norm.
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Conclusion
Are Americans truly afraid to speak their minds? The study (Chopik et al., 2024) we looked at above, certainly implies so. We can infer from their study that in earlier years, people expressed themselves more compared to more recent years. They concluded that this trend was a result of people worrying about what others thought of them and a reduced willingness to defend their beliefs publicly. This opens up a whole other question on the role of social media in this trend and why we seem to care a lot about what people think of us. We don’t know if this trend will be reversed in the future but we know that the desire to be expressive and unique is part of what makes us Humans. If we’re not fulfilling this need, can we find satisfaction in our lives as we slowly conform to societal norms?
References
Brüssow, H. (2022). On opinion, freedom of speech and its responsibilities. Microbial Biotechnology, 15(10), 2507–2517. https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14119
Chopik, W., Götschi, K., Carrillo, A., Weidmann, R., & Potter, J. (2024). Changes in Need for Uniqueness From 2000 Until 2020. Collabra Psychology, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.121937
Dastgeer, S., & Stewart, D. (2021). Freedom of Speech and Press in Muslim-Majority Countries. International Journal of Communication, 15(0), 25. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15741
Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (2007). “Express Yourself”: Culture and the Effect of Self-Expression on Choice.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.1
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