Social Effect and Withdrawn Demeanor - Essay Example

Social Influence and Anti-Social Behavior Social Influence and Anti-Social Behavior Introduction The social behavior study defines that the behavior of individuals is under greater influence by the actions and approaches of others regardless of their type i.e. real, visualized, or entailed. Since the topic is vast and detailed, therefore, it required to investigate and highlight various aspects of social behavior. In order to understand the influence of social influence from a group, a social institution, or an authority and their relationship with the anti-social behavior, various experiments were conducted by social scientists. The purpose of this essay is to assess the researches done on social influence by Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo and how they enhanced our understanding of anti-social behavior. Furthermore, the essay will present examples from the researches to support the arguments. Human beings face various roles in their life on a daily basis. It is not necessarily important that you are an experienced advocate or bartender, your role-plays a significant part in your life as well as in the life of others (Friedkin, 2006). It is indirectly associated with the roles of other individuals, and it depends that how we alter their roles. If we rightly use our roles then it will have a positive impact on the roles of others. On the contrary, if the roles are used spitefully then it will not only harm and mentally damage an individual, but groups and even masses (Forgas & Williams, 2001). The example of Adolf Hitler is a living illustration of the aforementioned text. In order to study the subject in detail and in-depth, social scientists and researchers conducted various studies and researches (Leary & Hoyle, 2013). The 1950 to 1970 era gave rise to various psychological studies in order to understand the dominancy of social influence and its relationship with the pro / anti-social behavior of individuals (Cardwell & Flanagan, 2005). At the same time the psychological sociologists and scientists such as, Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo aimed to conduct various experiments to identify whether social influence will enhance the anti-social behavior or not. These experiments were conducted in different eras and aimed to research different hypothesis (Kornblum, 2011). Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment It is obvious that the characteristics of social roles are not always worse, but when they actually are then they change our perception towards life. In order to assess the adverse impacts of roles with the help of a real life situation, Zimbardo conducted a staged research, which was a very terrifying real life scenario compared to other social behavior experiments. Zimbardo ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ is famous for its veracity. In order to understand the experiment, it is very vital to study the various social psychological elements that were a part of the study (Zimbardo, 1999). It should be observed that all the participants; prisoners, guards, and confederates of the experiment were willing to participate and were paid $15 / day (Zimbardo, 2014). Zimbardo aimed to study that how quickly participants will adopt the roles as guards and prisoners stimulated in a prison life, in the experiment. The prison scenario was kept as real as possible, starting from their arrest to their strip-searching and in prison uniform (Zimbardo, 2014). The guards also wore a khaki uniform along with sunglasses and had handcuffs and whistle. The purpose of the experiment which was to identify, whether or not the volunteers will perceive their roles as real or not was soon cleared (Zimbardo, 2008). This was reflected from the actions of both the prisoners and the guards. The reciprocal behavior that was articulated by both the prisoners and the guard participants altered mutual behavior. Because of the brutality done in the experiment, as the guards started harassing the prisoners, the experiment was called off on the sixth day, as it was believed that someone might get physically or psychologically hurt if the experiment continues (Stolley, 2005). ‘We had to call off the experiment and close down our prison after only 6 days of what might have been a 2-week long study of the psychological dynamics of prison life. We had to so as too many normal young men were behaving pathologically as powerless prisoners or as sadistic, all-powerful guards” (Zimbardo, 1999). Milgram’s Studies of Obedience to Authority On the other hand, Milgram was more interested in studying that how far individuals will go in order to follow the instructions obtained from authorities, for harming others. In general, it can be said that he wanted to study the intensity of the influence on people to commit evil acts (Zimbardo, 2008). In the same way, Zimbardo’s experiment, volunteers were selected for the experiment. All the participants were male. The experiment included a confederate, learner, teacher, and one experimenter. All of them were defined with their roles (Clarkson, 2013). The learners were strapped to the chair in an experimenting room where the teacher was also present. The learner was asked to recall a list of certain words, which he was given to learn. During the test, if the learner makes a mistake, the teacher will give him an electric shock, with increasing the level of the shock gradually, at every single mistake (Moore & Isen, 1990). Majority of the learners gave wrong answers but the teachers (who were participants as well) continued to give them a shock, which ranged as high as 450 Volts. Those who did not want to continue were asked by the experimenter to do so and follow the standard instructions (Cardwell & Flanagan, 2005). This again illustrates that, it is not important that the act is brutal, violent or might kill some innocent human; people always follow orders taken from some authorities. Milgram successfully concluded that obedience to follow orders is rooted in human psychology (Leary & Hoyle, 2013). This is how they are brought up and this is what social factors tell them; to obey parents, to follow orders from their teachers and the respective authorities (Cardwell & Flanagan, 2005). It should be noted that, in social psychology studies and experiments, it is very complex to balance ethics with the accuracy of the study and the findings as it may have impacts on the results (Kornblum, 2011). Therefore, both the experiments conducted by Zimbardo and Milgram were faulty and unethical. The approach, which was adopted for the experiment, could have harmed the participants (Smeulers & Grünfeld, 2011). Ash’s Study of Conformity In the year 1951, social psychologists Solomon Asch, in order to study the accurate social pressure from a certain majority group on an individual to obey / conform, conducted an experiment. The experiment was conducted on 123 male students of the Swarthmore College, USA (Surhone et al., 2011). The experiment also known as the Asch Study, was done with the help of a test that consisted of lines. Asch wanted to know to what extent individuals will conform because of the obvious pressures surrounding them (Andersen & Taylor, 2007). Asch created a set up in which there were eight confederates who were asked to answer wrongly, that means they were ‘actors posing as participants’ (Surhone et al., 2011), while there was one participant who thought that the other eight are also participants. The group was asked questions and it was observed that 74% of the times, the participant adhered and conformed to what the confederates said. Some conformed to an instinct of disbelief, but even in that condition, they conformed. This showed how a group could have an influence on the decision and judgments on an individual (Kornblum, 2011). Thus, it can be said in general that all three social psychologists tried to investigate the factors that may influence the anti-social behavior because of the social pressure (Surhone et al., 2011). Zimbardo tried to study status and power in a group / real life scenario, known as ‘Stanford Prison Experiment. Similarly, Milgram studied the degree of obedience that individuals follow as orders, even if it endangers innocent lives. Asch also conducted a group experiment to investigate conformity and to know to what extent individual can conform to a group or mass (Clarkson, 2013). Social influence has a deep role and plays an important part in human lives. They readily adopt social roles and they conform to the duties they are expected to perform (Spalding, 2011). Their interest and devotion are likely to be increased if the roles allocated are stereotyped, powerful, or racist; as it can be seen from the example of Stanford Prison example. It was declared before the experiment that no physical act or violence will be practiced, but the guards were eventually noticed to harass the prisoners as they had power over them (Moore & Isen, 1990). In today’s contemporary society, the social factors / influences are becoming highly responsible for anti-social behavior. Frustration, aggression, and antagonism are the basic characteristics that are hidden in individuals (Friedkin, 2006). The need is to highlight that characteristic by giving power or through an order. Despite the fact that the learners from the Milgram’s experiment might die because of the 450 watts electrical shot, the teacher continued to do so, as he had been asked to follow the standard procedures (Moore & Isen, 1990). Individuals do not care for the consequences, once they have power and authority, they will follow the social models and will fully execute them (Stolley, 2005). The social influence can be clearly seen in the case of the experiment that was conducted by Asch. Asch’s participants just went with the other eight confederates. Despite the doubt of error, they decided to answer what the group answered. This is the influence of social pressure on an individual (Leary & Hoyle, 2013). When individuals are put in a sadistic environment, their obedience and their role can be questioned. The social influences that are exerted on them, makes them do certain things, which forms their opinion in a negative way (Spalding, 2011). Because of such experiences, individuals then behave in an anti-social manner. However, in the case of Milgram’s experiment, it was a one-on-one trial. Since both the teacher and the learner were not able to do so, therefore, there was an increased level of willingness to conform to the orders, as they were not able to see the person in pain (Moore & Isen, 1990). In the case of Asch’s experiment, the level of confidence of the participants was, however, comparatively low because of the peer pressure and the group contestants (Cardwell & Flanagan, 2005). The participant was put in doubt because of the accomplices answers. This tells that authority and power do not only exert pressure over an individual but also sometimes peer-pressure and social / surrounding factors also become reasons for self-doubt (Spalding, 2011). Summary Social influences are obvious and have prominent impacts on the anti-social behavior of individuals. In order to investigate the dilemma, researchers, social scientists came forward to highlight the importance of the subject and to identify the accurate factors behind it. To date, various studies, researches and experiments have been conducted on the subject of social influence and anti social behavior. However, the experiments conducted by Zimbardo, Milgram, and Asch had significant importance in this field and cleared many indistinct perspectives. All three scientists conducted experiments to highlight the factors responsible for the conformity to role and power, orders and obedience. However, all the three experiments were conducted in different time intervals; they had almost same approach of creating a real life scenario with the help of participants (mainly college students –male). The results showed that the investigators were able to identify the factors and the hypothesis effectively as the individuals readily adopted their social roles and conform to it. The authority of power and command (in the case of Zimbardo) played a special role and the experiment was called off, as the investigators feared that, the participants might physically or mentally harm each other. Similarly, in the other two experiments, same results were evidenced that in which social influence played a vital role in the obedience of the participants (the case of Milgram) and the conformity of the participants (the case of Asch’s study). Social influence does alter and enhance the anti-social behavior of individuals in various scenarios, because of various social factors and pressures. List of References Andersen, M. & Taylor, H., 2007. Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society, Updated. Mason: Cengage Learning. Cardwell, M. & Flanagan, C., 2005. Psychology AS. New York: Nelson Thornes. Clarkson, P.P., 2013. Counselling Psychology: Integrating Theory, Research and Supervised Practice. New York: Routledge. Forgas, J.P. & Williams, K.D., 2001. Social Influence: Direct and Indirect Processes. Sussexx: Psychology Press. Friedkin, N.E., 2006. A Structural Theory of Social Influence. London: Cambridge University Press. Kornblum, W., 2011. Sociology in a Changing World. Mason: Cengage Learning. Leary, M.R. & Hoyle, R.H., 2013. Handbook of Individual Differences in Social Behavior. New York: Guilford Publications. Moore, B.S. & Isen, A.M., 1990. Affect and Social Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press. Surhone, L.M., Timpledon, M.T. & Marseken, S.F., 2011. Asch Conformity Experiments. Saarbrucken: VDM Publishing. Smeulers, A. & Grünfeld, F., 2011. International Crimes and Other Gross Human Rights Violations: A Multi- and Interdisciplinary Textbook. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Spalding, F., 2011. Antisocial Behavior. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Stolley, K.S., 2005. The Basics of Sociology. Portsmouth: Greenwood Publishing Group. Zimbardo, P.G., 1999. Reflection of the Stanford Prison Experiment: Genesis, Transformations, Consequences. In Blass, T. Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm. Sussexx: Psychology Press. pp.193-220. Zimbardo, P.G., 2008. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House. Zimbardo, P.G., 2014. Stanford Prison Experiment. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.prisonexp.org/faq.htm" http://www.prisonexp.org/faq.htm [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Read More