Power of Situation - Research Paper Example

31 of March Power of Situation Human actions are caused by external influences instead of internal conscience. The environment in which a child is born and brought up has more potential to shape his identity than his internal humanistic conscience and other internal forces. The external influence may have detrimental effects on people by altering their behaviours in conformity with the prevailing environmental influences such as cultures and religion. The adverse sides of this arise where the environmental forces encourage behaviours deemed immoral. It is difficult to change the environment to conform to a person’s character, but easy to change the character to conform to the prescriptions of the society. The issue of influences of human behaviour is a fundamental area of study in the contemporary society where issues of morality and ethics almost always touch families and professions. A paradigm shift in the societal mindset is required to alter its potential to cause negative behaviours in the population. The power of a situation shapes the character traits of society members. Dawn K.Coutant, author of “The effect of A Power-Imbalanced Situation on The Cognitive Processing Of Low-Power Group Members” claims that when a child is born, the brain is blank (78). Knowledge is written into the brain from the experiences as one interacts with the environment. A range of factors such as culture, emotions and authority influences the traits of a person and impacts behavior. The socio-economic environment and situations surrounding the environment affects the traits of people more than they know. A person’s friends, family members, enemies, systems and even the media impact on his behavior in very fundamental ways. Many may argue about personality differences, which are inborn and not affected by the environment, but these traits are developed by situations surrounding the environment. There are certain standards and expectations that the society puts on every one of its members. Adam D. Galinsky, author of “Power Reduces The Press Of The Situation: Implications For Creativity, Conformity, And Dissonance” states that the behavior of the members of the society is a product of these expectations (14). The society tells human beings what to do and how to do it. It prescribes the mode of behavior and conduct. Different Experiments and the Power of Situation In his book, “Replicating Milgram: Would People still Obey Today?,” Jerry M Burger explains the findings of an experiment that replicated Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies. His studies allowed for useful comparisons with the original investigations and protected the participant’s wellbeing. In the replication, seventy adults took part. The obedience rates were slightly lower than the Milgram’s. The rates of obedience and disobedience did not have gender variations. However, there were evidences supporting the fact that personality differences affected the responses of the participants. This experiment demonstrated the power of instinctive conscience and the external one at the same time. Solomon Aschs, a social psychologist, with the experimental effect on group conformity also carried out an experiment to demonstrate the strong situational power, as opposed to internal human instinctive power. Asch showed that situations have more power to influence human behavior than personality and character (Fiske, Gilbert &Lindzey 1172). He showed that many people want to fit in the society rather than doing the right thing. A case in point is service in a corrupt regime that fights the reformists to death. An individual who is otherwise honest and decent may get appointed to a position of authority in such an authoritarian and corrupt regime. In many instances, the honesty in such a person does not live to see the light of day. They soon begin to emulate the corrupt system and try to fit in it rather than fight to change it. This is because the power of the situation is stronger than that of the personality or character. In some regimes, people are expected to comply with harsh and irrational directives of the ruling. Due to fear of punishment or reprimand, they have to comply with such wishes no matter what their instincts inform them to do. The experiments of Asch proved the fact that personal traits are overpowered by situations. The decisions of the majority also have a way of shaping actions of people. If the power of personality outweighed that of situations, people would strongly stand their ground no matter what society would think. Asch’s experiment was a clear demonstration of how people succumb to the power of social pressure. In schools, students get involved in some activities because of peer pressure. Even the most disciplined, well mannered students sometimes fall into the traps of peer influence and do things that may surprise their parents and teachers. People believe that the majority is right and minority is wrong. Accordingly, they have to play to the public gallery to satisfy the demands of the majority rather than their own. Many countries have adopted democratic styles of governments because of this notion that the majority is always right. Human beings have a tendency of failure to take personal decisions and will lay blame on circumstances rather than the personal flaws when things get out of hand. Humans always overlook their personal traits to appease the views of a majority even if they are not right. When one underestimates his own traits and adopts that of the majority, very little is left of his own character. His behavior becomes a product of a society guided by the wishes of the vast majority. Moral behavior is largely situation-specific. A person’s genetic composition, attachment, security, neuro-biological factors and rearing experiences can only have limited influence on the differences witnessed on moral performance Moral behavior does not usually develop in a cumulative or linear fashion and the morality of a person does not remain stable at all times; it changes with situations. The situation appeared to be a very powerful factor of determining the children’s donating behavior more than any other factor. Many parents believe that young children and infants are very innocent humans and that morality happens in a cumulative and linear fashion. The science of morality has also been attached to the idea of individual’s steady progress towards more sophistication of moral stance. Morality is situational just like any other human behavior. Marinus H. VanIJzendoorn, author of “In Defence of Situational Morality: Genetic, Dispositional And Situational Determinants Of Children’s Donating To Charity.” and others set out to find out the willingness of children to donate money to charity as an example of pre-social behavior. The two different samples of children aged seven found no evidence of role attachment, parenting or temperament. Elements of genetic components were also not found in the experiment. Very few children were inclined to donate money to charity after viewing a promotional UNICEF film of fellow children suffering from the biting hands of poverty. However, after gentle probing by the experimenter, many children expressed their willingness to donate to charity. This implies that the children succumbed to the powerful situation of probing to donate. They did not willingly donate due to internal forces even afterwatching the emotional heart-breaking film showing how their fellows were wallowing in abject poverty. Cognitive moral judgments may only play a limited role in children’s decisions to act with morality. The association between cognitive moral judgment and moral actions seems to be a complex one. The actions of children and other members of the society and their decisions to act in a moral manner are largely determined by situations. This experiment detected a gap between thought and actions (VanIJzendoorn 17). It demonstrated that people may think in a particular manner, but act according to the dictates of the external factors. Independent thinking and action, therefore, becomes difficult from childhood. Michael Harris Bond author of “Refining Lewin’s Formula: A General Model for Explaining Situational Influence on Individual Social Behavior.” developed a model for individual social behavior and incorporated the contributions of personality and features of situations. He defined the term situation as something external to an actor that objectively confronts him in space and time (Bond 1). A situation can be physical or social and presents as objective and independent from the actor. The significance of situations cannot be underestimated as they influence human behavior. People exhibit different behaviors in different circumstances. When one is a teacher in a staffroom, there is a standard of behavior expected of him or her. The implication is that the classroom situation impacts his or herbehavior. Bond presents real life examples of how people behave in different situations. A student’s behavior at the beginning of the week may be different from his or her behavior at the end of the week due to different situations surrounding different times. The way a student will behave during or shortly before his exams will also be very different from his behavior after exams. Situations will always suggest courses of action from which an actor follows a course that leads to the desired consequences. It is possible that the human behavior may be consciously or unconsciously enacted (Bond 2). It depends about the situation. Bond agrees that personalities, dispositions and orientations can only work with different situations to shape and constrain a person’s behavior (Bond 15). A person’s behavior involves interaction with the external environment, which is subjected to different situations. The way people behave cannot remain static and stable throughout their existence. Different times present different situations and impact how a person acts. Mary E. Jenson author of “The Joint Influence of Consensus Information and Situational Information on Trait Inferences for Targets and Population.” also conducted two experiments to demonstrate the power of a situation on the character traits of individuals. The experiments examined the interplay of situational information and consensus information in shaping people’s trait inferences (Jenson 1). The volunteers were offered attractive gifts to influence their choices. It was realized that situations influence choices to participate in events. The Power of Situations over Genetic Make-up The many social experiments conducted by social psychologists have clearly shown that situations have a stronger sway on human behavior than their personality. Naturalists argue that a person’s character is a product of his genetic make-up. They are strong proponents of the notion that personality shapes a person’s behavior more than the environment. What they fail to demonstrate is the fact that honest and independent minded people sometimes fail to stand by their own views. This is because of situations that they get subjected to by the wide society. There is always a fear associated with going against the grain. Humans always want to behave in a manner that pleases the society. The internal forces that shape behaviors get suppressed by environmental situations. Conclusion The character traits of humans are products of the situations surrounding them. No matter how soft spoken, kind, honest, sincere, generous and rational a person is, his actions are limited to the situations that surround him. The humans’ characters are changeable to conform to the environment, but the character cannot change the environment. Social psychologists have established disconnects between thoughts and actions. Humans do not necessarily act as they think. They act according to the dictates of the society under different situations and circumstances. I appreciate the fact that there are personality differences, but these differences do not impact on their behaviors as much as situations do. Different times and circumstances also produce different behaviors. The power of a situation is far greater than that of personality in determining and shaping behavior. People imagine that their traits are sets of enduring attributes that contribute to their characters. However, the truth is far from their notions and assertions. Humans can be likened to chameleons that unintentionally and instinctively change their behavior on the basis of the surrounding. It is worth noting, however, that the internal influences can produce certain behaviours which make the society to have diversified in terms of character. The fact that two or more people leave in the same environment may not make their characters similar in all aspects even when all the external forces are similar. Works Cited Bond, Michael Harris. "Refining Lewins Formula: A General Model For Explaining Situational Influence on Individual Social Behavior." Asian Journal of Social Psychology 16.1 (2013): 1-15. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Burger, Jerry M, “Replicating Milgram: Would People still Obey Today?.” 2006. Santa Clara University Coutant, Dawna K. "The Effect of A Power-Imbalanced Situation on The Cognitive Processing Of Low-Power Group Members." Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, And Practice 10.1 (2006): 71-83. PsycINFO. Web. 19 Mar. 2014 Galinsky, Adam D., et al. "Power Reduces The Press Of The Situation: Implications For Creativity, Conformity, And Dissonance." Journal of Personality And Social Psychology 95.6 (2008): 1450-1466.PsycINFO. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Guinote, Ana. "Power And Affordances: When The Situation Has More Power Over Powerful Than Powerless Individuals." Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology 95.2 (2008): 237-252. PsycINFO. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Riggio, Heidi R., and Amber L. Garcia. "The Power of Situations: Jonestown and The Fundamental Attribution Error." Teaching of Psychology 36.2 (2009): 108-112. PsycINFO. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Rose, Jason P., Paul D. Windschitl, and Mary E. Jenson. "The Joint Influence of Consensus Information And Situational Information on Trait Inferences For Targets And Populations." Social Cognition 29.2 (2011): 147-165. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. VanIJzendoorn, Marinus H., et al. "In Defence Of Situational Morality: Genetic, Dispositional And Situational Determinants Of Childrens Donating To Charity." Journal Of Moral Education 39.1 (2010): 1-20. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Read More