Human Behavior, Character and Situation - Research Paper Example

?In the Milgram’s experiments, how much weight would you place on the character of the persons involved and how much on the situation? There is very less weight that can be placed on the character of the persons involved in Milgram experiments. Those experiments were performed all over the world and the results indicated that on average of 61-66% people went to the limit of inflicting 450 Volts to a person they had just met (Thomas). This high average suggests that there is hardly any concrete relevance to the character of the persons involved. The phenomenon is not very complicated as later on Milgram explained the psychology of the people. People who shocked their ‘learners’ in the experiments revealed that they only considered them to be an instrument that was conducting the will of the other person, the ‘authority’. Once they got that feeling in their head that it is not actually them who are performing the experiments it was really easy for them to forget about their strongly held moral beliefs (“Milgram Experiment”). The experimenters were mostly those credible University scientists who are assumed to have the right to issue commands one feels an obligation to obey to them (Thomas, 958). But the character of the person cannot be completely ruled out of the equation, there is some relevance of the morals and personal ethics of the person. People who are usually sensitive and caring in their lives would feel very uncomfortable inflicting injury or shock to another person who supposedly has a ‘heart condition’ (in the experiments, this was a fake condition but that was real to the subject or the teacher). Another theory regarding the human behavior in the experiments is that many subjects resisted and questioned the nature of the experiment and when they were told by the experts or the scientists that it was ok to continue, it had a major effect on the probing behavior of the subjects. They thought if the experts think that the experiments are safe then they shouldn’t be much concerned (“Milgram Experiement”). Other than these facts, further more in his reflections on the experiments, Milgram said that ordinary people doing their jobs and living their normal lives without any particular disorder or hostility would turn agents of destructions under authority. People were behaving in such a way that was conflicting with their moral and conscience belief and in many experiments, the authority won over the morals. Despite that fact, people whose conscience and moral beliefs put up a huge fight with the authority resisted more and did not continue the experiments. Milgram records one conversation of an electrical engineer who on inflicting his learner with 220 volts stopped and questioned the group about the pain being inflicted to the learner. He was told that there would be no permanent tissue damage, to this he responded that he is an electrical engineer and he’s been electrocuted a few times and he knows how it feels to get an electric shock and especially when the person knows that it is coming (“Milgram Experiement”). Hence it can be concluded that the character or the moral beliefs of a person do count when considering Milgram experiments. But when the results of those experiments are analyzed in terms of how many people defied their own morals to submit to authority then this weight doesn’t seem that much significant. Think of a situation in which you or others have behaved in a manner inconsistent with your/their true character. What was it about the situation that influenced your /their behavior? When I was in second grade in junior school, I was a bright student and the teacher made me the class representative of the class. My job was to monitor the activities of the students when the teacher wasn’t around. Sometimes I used to check the test and give marks on the test. I am a humble guy by nature and due to my excellent class behavior and good grades I was made the class representative. But there was one thing that bothered me; the teacher gave me the authority to hit the students who were made noises while the teachers were changing their class rooms after lectures. In the beginning I was very reluctant to even touch other students but things changed later on. I started reporting the student’s names to the teacher who were creating mischief or making noises but the teacher got irritated and said that she had given me the permission to ‘correct’ the students then why was I telling her. She asked this in a very mocking tone, “Can’t you control the class?” This was very insulting for me, there was a job that the teacher had asked me to do and I wasn’t able to perform. But my moral and conscience were against the authority of the teacher. I would never hit my class mates but I had to and on one day I hit some students. I did my routine of making the list of students who were misbehaving during class brakes and I went to the teacher and handed over her the list. She said, “Have you taught them a lesson?” I said no, she said, “Are you afraid of any guy? Aren’t you strong enough?” I replied in negative. She thought I was lying, therefore in an act of mercy, she took me in front of the class and asked me to read out the names of the students from my list so that each student’s name called out was supposed to stand up. When this was done, she asked me to go up to each kid and give a slap on their back. I was hesitant but due to shame of being a coward and probably due to the fear of defying a straight order from the authority I gave each of the standing students a slap on the back. But to my amazement I started off with a very weak slap to the first student. There were seven students standing. And by the time I reached the last student my slaps got harder till they were making a thudding sound on the backs of my class mates. Later on I felt so shamed of what I did but this burning guilt was calmed by the argument that I was acting under authority. Precisely why I hit my class mates, I can only give a few reasons; I was raised to obey the authority and when that incident happened I was only in junior high. No matter what my teachers and parents said, I HAD TO OBEY it. This was supposed to be my only motive. I was told ‘If I obey the authority of my parents, God will be happy with me and will bless me. If I obey the authority of the teachers, I would get good grades and will excel in the school’. To me, following authority was salvation and defying it was sin and everything evil. What I did was against my conscience and my belief but the sense and reward of obeying a supreme authority used to overshadow everything, including the guilt of hitting my class mates. In contrast, think of a situation where in which you or others have risen above the strong influence of the situation? Once I was the supervisor of my work campaign in the call center department. Everything was going ok and I was getting appreciation from my boss on almost daily basis. I also got the best call center agent of my company award. It was summer time and there were holidays in my college. Most of the students were looking for part time work anywhere they could find. One of my good friends asked me to hire him in the company where I was the supervisor. I wasn’t completely in charge but my recommendation did count and my employer trusted me. In my view this young fellow was alright for the job. He was good at work and was time punctual. My employer interviewed him and found him fine enough. He got hired. Most of the time, my employer used to train him and I was just giving him tips, advices and technique of handling calls. I was not in direct in charge of him yet. I had good reputation and professional relationship with my employer. He made me direct in charge of this new person, my friend. I was coaching him and put him on calls to collect old medical bills. He was sloppy in the beginning but eventually got the hang of dealing with people over the phone. Then one day he was on test calls and I was directly supervising him and by sheer luck he received a payment of $2000 over phone on an old medical bill. My job duties included reporting the performances of employees under my supervision to other department that was above my immediate employer (manager). But this duty was performed through him. I told him of the lucky incident that night. It was unusual in the sense that normally over a phone call an agent usually collects under $50 and on that night he had pocketed $2000. I asked my supervisor to forward the performance of my friend to the higher managers and give him his share of the payment (there was commission for the collector of the medical bill) but my supervisor refused to forward it saying that it is out of pure luck and we shouldn’t be encouraging the intern over pure luck especially in his initial days. This was a very hard situation for me, I was under the influence of my supervisor and on the other hand there was this new intern. My morals and beliefs told me to be fair with the new guy and give him his due share of recognition and the share of the payment collection but my boss thought otherwise. I couldn’t defy his orders to his face as we had a very good professional relationship but later on in our monthly meeting of supervisors and managers, we were supposed to review the new interns and give our recommendations and reflection on their performances. I stuck with the truth. I told the authorities of his collection of a big payment in his first week of job. After that things got bitter between me and my boss but deep down inside my conscience was clear. What enables a person to overcome a strong situation? It is the strength of a person’s beliefs that make him/her overcome a strong situation. Refering to the experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram there were around 66% people who submitted to the authority and went against their moral principles in inflicting pain to an unknown person. To strengthen the argument, this question should be answered, had Milgram put people like Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa or church nuns or popes or people who strongly believe in karma or some other belief that tells them that what goes around comes around, it is common sense that the results would have been different. People were chosen randomly and average common people usually do have some belief system but majority doesn’t follow the majority of the commandments of the book. They do believe but not truly apply their belief in their daily dealings of life. The evidence is that there was hardly any person in the experiment that went on to reach 450 Volts without hesitation or resistance. It simply indicates that there was always a battle going on in the minds of the subjects but authority came out victorious over belief and morals in most of the cases. Once the person gains the confidence about his own judgment and what he believes is right, he will stay firm on it and will resist a change in it. People who resisted were always told to continue the experiment in a very authoritative voice implying and giving the indication that now they have signed up for this, they have to finish the experiments. But people who were strong in their morals once realized that this is against their principles, they forfeited the experiments regardless of the consequences. What are the governance and leadership implications of the research described in the Note on Human Behavior? In the Note on Human Behavior the implications and importance of governance and leadership have been pronounced. Ethical leadership, or the ability and capacity to touch and influence the lives of others so that they act more virtuously are the highest measures of character. People like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Abraham Lincoln are respected and admired exactly for such traits. The people who enjoy the authority and power need to exercise these traits more often. It was seen how people behaved in the experiments of Milgram by inflicting pain on another human being under the influence of authority, so why not use the positive side of this power of authority and push people to become greater in their characteristic measures and rise to a higher moral place. People who have the authority are comparatively successful and their success makes them role models and their conduct sets the manner for those who look to them for guidance. It is difficult for an organization to be ethical if its governance system and its leaders are unethical. There is an old saying that the fish rots from the head down. And it perfectly fits the hierarchy of any organization or country (Gurtler et al. 2). Leadership is not only limited to the people that work around that particular individual and shaping their moral conduct, it goes beyond that and shapes organizations, companies, municipalities, towns, cities, suburbs, countries, societies and civilizations in a way that incorporates and preaches ethical and moral behavior of the highest standards. Works Cited Nohria, Nitin, Sandra J. Sucher, and Bridget Gurtler. "Note on Human Behavior: Character and Situation." Harvard Business Review (2006): 1-8. Print. Blass, Thomas. "The Milgram Paradigm After 35 Years: Things We Now Know about Obedience to Authority." Journal of Applied Psychology 29.5 (1999): 955-78. Print. Blass, Thomas. "The Man Who Shocked The World | Psychology Today." Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. 1 Mar. 2002. Web. 23 Sept. 2011. . "Milgram Experiment." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 23 Sept. 2011. . Read More