By: Ronah Edith
One might wonder what that means, but the name comes from an analogy in a video I watched some years back. The analogy is this: Imagine you are at a thrift market, for example, Kajja here in Uganda.
As you are bent over picking through some clothes, you come across a dress, but after careful examination, you decide you don’t want it and throw it back into the pile.
Immediately, another lady picks it up, and after she too carefully examines it (or perhaps without much care at all), she pays for it and takes it. What usually happens is that the first lady will feel like she missed out, lost out, and sometimes questions her decision to throw it back.
While there is no official “bend over theory,” the feeling of wanting an item more after someone else shows interest in it can be explained by several established psychological concepts.
The Scarcity Principle: The dress becomes more valuable when it is perceived as a limited resource.
Psychological Reactance: The threat to your freedom to acquire the dress triggers a desire to get it back.
Social Proof: The other person’s interest acts as a form of social validation, making you second-guess your initial decision and feel the item must be desirable. (Let’s concentrate on this one.)
So, why is it important for us to understand this made-up theory? Because with knowledge of something, you can recognise when it’s happening to you and react accordingly. I want to make it clear that this isn’t just about a dress; these principles can be applied to many aspects of our daily lives.
The “social proof” principle explains trivial issues like why some people find married men or women more attractive, or why the moment a man or woman confirms they are in a relationship, there seem to be many suitors who were “interested” in them, and to a degree, it explains peer pressure.
But it also addresses deeper issues. It is a core driver of modern consumerism and social validation. The constant visibility of what others have, what they are doing, or who they are with can amplify these feelings of “missing out” or questioning our own choices. This has led many to feel pressure to conform or desire things simply because others value them.
So, are the decisions you make based on your value system, or are they influenced by the value and validation placed on them by those around you or society?
We should learn to differentiate our own voice from the echoes of those around us.
Going back to the market analogy, it’s clear that without external influence, the lady’s judgment was against the purchase of the dress (and she should have been comfortable with it).
This could have been due to different factors, such as the cut or material wasn’t to her liking, or it could be as simple as she might have already picked better options. Does that make her decision any better or worse than the lady who took it? No, because they both had different tastes (values) they placed on the dress.
What I am saying is this: we all have different value systems, priorities, and preferences, and because of that, we are going to make different decisions and choices. Let not the value another person has placed on something be the gauge you use for your decision.
Let’s learn to be confident in our individuality, lest we lose our voices in the chaos and end up in destinations that have nothing to do with us.
