Crab Mentality? And Why Is It So Prevalent In Malaysia's Indian Society

Why do Indians still have this Crab Mentality?

Do you realise, in comparison to others, that certain individuals in our Indian society have this crab mentality where they always have to pull another person down? It doesn’t matter if it’s about accomplishments, success, or advancement in various professions; these individuals are constantly trying to bring them down rather than encouraging or supporting them.

I personally encountered many incidents related to this where most of my relatives will always question my education choice. Their comment always seem to pull my sprits down.

“What do you get by writing?” “How much do you even earn from this job?”

You don’t even have to help or support, which is why there is a need for discouragement. As Thalaivar mentioned in Kabali, if we put some crabs in a jar, they would try to escape. When one crab tries to escape, other crabs will bring them back down to their misery, and the same applies to other crabs. It is the same with our people; they are always the barriers to our growth.

Now let’s take a depth look into this Crab Mentality.

In psychology, this behaviour became known as “The Crab Effect,” or “The Crab Mentality,” as a way to illustrate the selfish, harmful, and jealous mindset of some members in a group, who will try to undermine and halt the progress of the other better-performing members in the group.

People with a fixed mindset believe that their character, intelligence, and creative qualities are fixed and cannot be improved.

Evidently, they tend to avoid difficulties, give up quickly, disregard criticism, and feel frightened by the success of others. As a result, instead of completing tough work and moving forward, they instinctively play small and bring others down in order to “remain on top.”

In a nutshell, rather than owning up to their predicament and confronting their own concerns, they try to undermine their own self-confidence and stifle the advancement of anyone who appears to be attaining success beyond them. They do it because they are envious and resentful, and they do it through downplaying, criticism, discouragement, and harsh acts.

In brief, those who fall victim to the crab effect live by the phrase, “If I can’t have it, neither can you.” That is why, without our knowledge, our surroundings can sometimes prevent us from going ahead in the direction we desire.

We are both victims and perpetrators of the crab effect. Sometimes you’re the one being pulled down, and sometimes you’re the one doing the tugging.

As an Indian community, all we can do is rather than pull a person down or point the person who is doing so, we can be the one who lifts them up. It doesn’t have to be an extravagant help, it could be as simple as emotional support.

Other than that, try to not be judgmental. Give your opinion in a way that can help them to improve and do better. Your words can greatly impact others, so be wise when talking or giving your views about others.

Let us stop being jealous of one another and start being proud of one another.

Remember that success is defined differently by each individual, and it is not finite. That’s right, success is limitless, and there’s plenty of it to go around. Let us be clever crabs that help each other and get started on this new dawn of a nation.

And once you’ve climbed out of the bucket, you’ll be free to explore the wide sea.