Crab mentality

What is crab mentality?

“Crab mentality involves pulling down anyone who achieves or is about to achieve success greater than yours. This behavior takes its name from how crabs scramble to get out of a boiling pot by clambering on top of the others. This has the effect of crabs pulling each other down so that no one escapes, and everyone ends up on the dinner table.” Spreading rumors, sabotaging achievements, and ridiculing achievements are examples of crab mentality.

1. What are the dangers of crab mentality?
   1. Hinders Development and Unity
      1. In a wider perspective, a negative effect of society embodying crab mentality would be its ability to hinder development and unity. When the mindset of crab mentality is practiced by society as a whole, it causes detrimental effects to the development of ideas and accomplishments. Since crab mentality is the thought of being selfish and the idea of “if I can’t have it, neither can you”, people subconsciously result in damaging and harming the accomplishments of others. As said in an article from The Anguillian Newspaper (2018), “Simply put, crab mentality is envy and jealousy. It is also often used colloquially in reference to individuals or communities attempting to improve their socio-economic situations, but kept from doing so by others who simply resent their ambition or success”. As a result, the potential positive influence of new ideas and accomplishments by successful individuals are delayed and terminated. In return, this would cause hatred and competition between citizens of a nation preventing any development to occur. Instead of individuals working collaboratively, they are instead fueled by anger and hatred towards one another.
   2. Lowers Peoples Self-esteem
      1. Bringing down others through crab mentality creates problems and can destroy one’s self esteem. When one brings someone else down, they invalidate their achievements and belittle them. This leads to the victim having a lower self-esteem and confidence. In a similar manner, comparing oneself to other people’s achievements may lead to a lower self-esteem as one would feel that he/she isn’t doing well enough compared to the likes of others. Overall, crab mentality just adds to fuel to the fire of jealousy, envy and other ill feelings towards oneself and/or others.
2. How can we avoid crab mentality?
   1. 1. Take action towards your own goals: Assessing one’s goals and taking strategic actions to achieve them would provide a clear structure to what steps to be done to achieve those goals. Tracking of progress is also another way that would encourage an individual as it presents a visual representation of their growth to keep them motivated.
      2. Avoid comparison: Each individual should take things at their own pace, such that success is subjective. Defining what success means to one would help them recognize what they want to achieve for themselves.
      3. Reduce the Usage of Social Media Apps Every Day: Individuals would often feel insufficient about themselves and jealous of their peers as their peers would post and flaunt their “perfect” life on social media (Andreassen, 2017, p. 287). Jealousy would often resort to a Crab Mentality wherein the victim would start thinking of ways on how to pull down their peers with “perfect” lives.
      4. Consciously practice gratitude every day: By becoming grateful every day, individuals would most likely have improved their moods, decisions, and relationships with others (Watkins et al., 2003, p. 431). In addition, practicing gratitude could also reduce an individual’s tendency to compare themselves with others as well as be more resilient and focused in their decision-making (Wilson, 2016, p. 1). Therefore, practicing gratitude such as writing a gratitude journal and appreciating good things in your life would most likely reduce your chances of being a victim of crab mentality.

References

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