In August, 2026, the Scorchers, hitherto ranked 153rd in the world, stood the logic of world football on its head by making it to the final of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON). The surprise pulled off by the Scorchers was accentuated by the fact that they had lost 4-0 to Ghana's Black Queens in a friendly match in Morocco prior to the commencement of the WAFCON competition. The commentary that followed Malawi's sterling performance in Morocco underscored an important point: It is possible! Redolent of the biblical David-Goliath motif, the Scorchers entered the tournament as underdogs and came out as decorated heroes. Understandably, following the successful WAFCON campaign, Malawi reveled in the thralls of ecstasy, celebrating the larger-than-life triumph of the girls.
Now that the dust of frenzy has settled, it is time for the 'Owl of Minerva' to fly at the dusk of collective reflection so that precious lessons can be ferreted out of the quasi-quixotic adventures of the Scorchers. As a nation, we need to understand what gave the girls the mettle to keep going even as the odds seemed stacked against them. As a nation, it is our responsibility to undertake what Clifford Geertz would call a 'thick description' of the Scorchers' journey to the WAFCON final, with a view to crystallizing the logic that led to the glorious accomplishment of Lovemore Fazili's side. That winning logic can then be extrapolated to the country's other strategic areas in pursuit of Malawi's elusive development aspirations. This article argues that the WAFCON success story can ossify what social psychologists call 'social proof' capable of orchestrating tangible mindset change on a larger scale.
The Elusiveness of Mindset Change
For a number of years now, we in Malawi have been harping on mindset change as a critical enabler of the Malawi 2063. In his foreword to the Malawi 2063 development blueprint, the President says the following about mindset change: "We need a mindset change that embodies a national consciousness built around belief in our own capabilities, home-grown solutions and a positive value system" (p. vii). The object of mindset change, according to this statement, is threefold: self-efficacy, internal locus of control, and values reorientation. It can be inferred from this threefold scope of mindset change that Malawi's under-development is attributable to lack of self-confidence, inability to value local solutions, and entrenchment of a warped value system. This idea returns in Chapter 2 of the document (p. 12). Chapter 4 of Malawi 2063 defines mindset change as "a new way of thinking and doing things", moving away from "dependency on donors and handouts, materialism and self-accumulation through corrupt practices" (p. 24) and embracing self-reliance, hard work, integrity, patriotism and positivity. To achieve mindset change, Malawi 2063 proposes to hold up for emulation "the service and achievements of exceptional Malawians" (p.24).
However, on the ground, mindset change has remained a concept touted ad nauseam by government officials, with little or no evidence that mindset change is indeed happening. This is a clear testimony that words alone cannot bring about change. As the American management guru Peter Ferdinand Drucker observed in his book entitled Managing Oneself (1999), bulldozers, not ideas, move mountains; the task of ideas is to direct bulldozers to the mountains that need to be moved!
The mountain of a debilitating mindset cannot be moved by ideas alone, much less words – we need evidence that what is being proposed can indeed be done.
As the popular maxim goes, 'Don't tell me, show me'.
Social Proof as an Influence Strategy
Mindset change is a function of influence. The word 'influence' is etymologically derived from the Latin influere, meaning 'to flow into'. In Geography, the verb describes the flow of rivers (tributaries) into a larger water body. Applied to leadership, influence is the ability to let one's ideas and attitudes flow into other people so that they adopt the leader's mind. To borrow the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept (Truth and Method), influence denotes the "fusion of horizon" between the leader's perspective and that of his/her followers.
However, influence does not just happen: it requires intentionality and strategies. Marketing psychologist Robert Cialdini identifies 'social proof' as one of potent influence strategies (cf. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 4th edition, 2021). Social proof is based on the fact that people tend to "determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct" (p. 129).
Emulation functions as a convenient shortcut for determining behavior, especially in unfamiliar circumstances. As Erif Hoffer once quipped, "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate one another". This strategy works even more powerfully when the behavior is modelled by many other people (p.133). Depending on the nature of the model behavior, social proof can bring about positive or negative results. When a virtuous person is constantly exposed to vicious behavior of the many, gradually his/her revolt against the negative behavior behinds to be smoothed out. Over time, he/she may even begin to find the erstwhile opprobrious behavior acceptable and worthy of emulation. Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease is an eloquent illustration of the power of the many to shape one's behavior: Obi Okonkwo, a young Nigerian man who returns home after studying in England, initially criticizes corruption but eventually falls into it himself.
Cialdini's 'social proof' is consistent with Eben Mumford's conviction that people are more comfortable following other people's example than figuring things out for themselves: "Thinking is difficult, often painful; following the lines of least resistance is a social law as well as a physical law, and in all groups the tendency is for the few to make the paths and the many to follow therein" (The Origins of Leadership, 1906, p.277). In other words, human beings tend to take the road most travelled because it is less demanding both intellectually and socially.
The French American social psychologist René Girard's mimetic theory is also grounded in the concept of imitation as a principle of socialization (cf. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World). The theory holds that people desire what others desire. The force of mimetic desire becomes even stronger when a particular object is desired by people regarded as models. For Girard, however, mimesis can foment violence. Drawing insights from Freudian psychology, Girard shows that the Oedipus complex is based on the fact that both the father and the son desire the mother, the son having learned the desire from the father.
From Social Proof to Social Epidemics
Cialdini's social proof or Girard's mimesis may not automatically translate into a nationwide or generational mindset change. What determines whether model behavior leads to sustained change is the scale of the behavioral exemplar. In fact, Cialdini signals that social proof is more effective when a particular behavior is modelled by "many other people". To understand the power of the many, one has to delve into Malcolm Gladwell's concept of social epidemics undergirded by what he calls the 'tipping point'.
In his Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the dynamics of social epidemics. He holds that "ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do". Gladwell identifies three factors that engender social epidemics: the law of the few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context. The law of the few states that social epidemics are a function of few but extraordinarily active agents called 'super-spreaders'. Borrowing Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 Rule, Gladwell observes that most social epidemics are driven by a handful of agents who, nonetheless, have an unusual number of personal contacts. In biblical parlance, the few are the 'leaven' of the earth. The return to fashion of Hush Puppies back in the 1990s, for instance, was masterminded by a handful of youngsters from East Village on the East Side of Lower Manhattan, who adopted the out-of-fashion shoes as a statement of non-conformity; these young people wore the shoes to public places, triggering imitation as a result.
The stickiness factor relates to the grabbing or holding power of contagious messages or behavior. In other words, a message is contagious if it stays once it is received. For instance, HIV spreads fast because once someone contracts it, the virus stays. This makes it possible for the number of adopters to progress geometrically because every adopter has a possibility to 'infect' other people over time. A social epidemic cannot take place if adopters embody the message or behavior temporarily. In communication, stickiness can be achieved by making messages memorable.
Finally, the power of context posits that people's behavior is influenced by the circumstances and conditions of the time and place in which someone operates. Some diseases spread faster in winter than in summer. Similarly, ideas and trends may spread faster in some contexts than in others. Cities, for instance, are more receptive to innovations than rural areas. Likewise,
A community that has experienced the wrath of drought may be more open to irrigation farming than a community that has never lacked rains.
Irrigation Farming: A Social Epidemic Building Up in Malawi
Many ears ago, Bob Marley sang a song entitled 'Natural Mystic'. The first two lines of the song go as follows: "There's a natural mystic blowing through the air/ If you listen carefully now you will hear". There is a social epidemic building up in Malawi; the epidemic has to do with irrigation farming. If you drive down to the Lower Shire you will see it. If you brave the potholed Zomba-Liwonde road, you will perceive it. Today, it is hard to find a perennial river in Malawi whose waters are not being harnessed for food production. Irrigation farming seems to have passed the stickiness factor. This is a palpable example of mindset change.
How to Trigger More Powerful Social Epidemics in Malawi
At the end of the introductory chapter of his book, Gladwell asks the following poignant question: "What can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?" It is my conviction that we can start positive epidemics by mastering Gladwell's three agents of epidemics. First, the law of the few requires that, for every desirable epidemic, we identify the few individuals who have extraordinary power to spread a particular form of behavior, not just messages. Second, the stickiness factor entails that messages should be as concrete as possible.
In most cases, the eye hears more than the ear! Seeing is believing! Showing people what others are doing is more powerful than speculating on possible outcomes.
Finally, the power of context necessitates proper social engineering of interventions. The kairos – the opportune time – would reduce resistance and accelerate the process of contagion.
