What has social psychology taught us about obedience - Essay Example

?What has social psychology taught us about obedience? Is obedience a desirable thing? Social Psychology examines the question of obedience through the influence of groups and authorities on individual behavior, investigating the way that cultural influences shape personal identity through the construction of values, morality systems, and the conscience. The study of obedience in society involves research into the patterns of behavior that create conformity, peer pressure, objective standards, and the unconscious biases that people commonly accept as part of their cultural value systems. (Myers, 2005) Obedience studies engage in issues of morality and the ability of the individual to resist social pressure under a variety of situations. Social Psychologists have developed innovative experimental methodologies such as those used in the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments that investigate the willingness of humans to use violence on each other as part of an institutional environment. (Zimbardo, 1972) The conclusions drawn from the research into obedience by social psychologists can be used to gain a better understanding of human morality as it is applied in group and individual patterns of behavior culturally, and in the practical decision-making of the self as it relates to the issues of moral choice with social consequences. Social Psychology experiments on obedience address the fundamental issues of conflict in modern societies, seeking to reform institutions and social practice when their findings are applied to government, bureaucratic, or corporate policies. (Blass, 2000) Social Psychology experiments on obedience are also used to guard against abuse of authority in social organizations. (Zimbardo, 1972) The problem of violence, human rights abuses, torture, and the corruption of authority in social institutions worldwide historically illustrates the importance of understanding how the human mind constructs a sense of authority and applies moral values through the conscience in social behavior. This is done by the individual under implied or overt community coercion related to peer pressure, or actual physical force may also be used to coerce people to obey orders in the greater society, as in the prison & law enforcement model. The use of authority in social institutions can be investigated using psychological methods that approach the behavioral question of obedience in an abstract or essential manner and include double-blind techniques to obscure the real motivations of the experiment to the participants. (Blass, 1991) In his landmark study on human behavior in relation to authority, Stanley Milgram initiated the study of obedience in individuals and groups through the methods of Social Psychology. Milgram viewed obedience as the psychological mechanism that was involved in governing acts of political decision-making, and related his investigation to the problems of social control as they were reflected in the 20th Century through the use of violence in authoritarian governments and other institutions. (Milgram, 1961) What truly surprised Milgram and his peers was the degree that the participants were willing to administer high-voltage shocks and pain on others as part of the experiment. To normal observers, this behavior would be observed as extremely cruel and harmful, yet the volunteers obeyed the administrators of the experiment even when they had no personal incentive. (Milgram, 1961) Milgram found that nearly every participant was willing to induce the maximum pain permitted by the experiment to the other humans involved, even while witnessing the suffering they were causing directly. (Milgram, 1961) The findings of the Milgram experiment relate to the problems of obedience, abuse of authority, and the administration of violence through cultural institutions. Milgram’s findings were replicated in an equally innovative study in social psychology known as ‘the Stanford Prison Experiment’ conducted by Philip Zimbardo. (Zimbardo, 1971) In this study, the psychologists decided to recreate the situation of a prison with some of the participants becoming prisoners and others acting as prison guards. Zimbardo was forced to end the experiment early, because the participants began to devolve into abusive behavior that included the torture of the simulated inmates by the role playing prison guards. (Zimbardo, 1971) The Stanford Prison Experiment, like the Milgram research, raised serious questions about the psychological foundations of democratic society in relation to fascism. Both of these studies show the relationship of obedience to authority as it is constructed through social institutions, and they also illustrate the power of authority as a conditioning force on human behavior. Obedience can lead to the suspension of the individual’s own moral judgment or lead to behavior that is violent, harmful, and deadly. It is clear that these experiments also show the degree to which moral actions and moral decisions define us as humans, as well as the threat that blind obedience has on obscuring our own conscience. Social Psychology views the activity of conscience as a form of self-persuasion, and the underlying mental processes are seen to be rooted in the conditioning that the individual undergoes when learning cultural values and roles. (Myers, 2005) The importance of social roles in obedience studies can be seen in the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments particularly in the way that participants reacted to role-playing activities by identifying their behavior with the social stereotypes of characters rather than utilizing their own self values as a foundation for moral judgment. Democracy depends on the mutual respect of rights between not only the citizens and the State, but also between the citizens themselves. There is a fundamental need to promote understanding between people, as well as tolerance, in modern society. Social Psychology can be used to investigate the causes of racism, prejudice, and bigotry in a community, as well as suggesting ways that cultural practices can be reformed. In this manner, the lessons learned from experiments like Milgram and Zimbardo’s on obedience can inspire activism in social policy or reform in institutions, and thus promote a greater realization of social justice in a community. Deciding whether or not obedience is a desirable thing for a society involves positing a moral and political ideal as a model for society and making critical judgments as to how the community should be organized. The relationship of social obedience to family patterns of organization is important, as is inquiring into how religion, politics, and culture interrelate in forming an individual’s sense of self and personal value system. Fundamentally, humans seek understanding of the self and other through direct questioning of experience in a process of self-reflection as a basis of consciousness, and this begins a process of learning, self-definition, and self-awareness that includes forming community and group organizations on the basis of shared subjectivities. Objectively, the ability to think freely is the value that our culture elevates over obedience as the basis of good citizenship and the foundation of moral decision-making. If the individual is overly obedient, as in the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments, the risk of social harm increases through the reduction of the free-thinking capacities related to moral conscience. These conclusions drawn from Social Psychology suggest that a community should educate individuals to be able to think freely, judge moral issues, and apply those decisions directly even against adversity or coercion as a means of preserving the foundations of culture against repression. Sources Cited: Balfour, Michael [2004]. Theatre in prison: theory and practice. Intellect Books, 2004. Blass, Thomas [2000]. Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm. Routledge, 2000. Blass, Thomas [2002]. The Man Who Shocked The World. Psychology Today, March 01, 2002. Blass, Thomas [1991]. Understanding behavior in the Milgram obedience experiment: The role of personality, situations, and their interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 60(3), Mar 1991, 398-413. Encina, Gregorio Billikopf [2011]. Milgram’s Experiment on Obedience to Authority. University of California, 2011. Kelman, Herbert C. [1967]. Human Use of Human Subjects: The Problem of Deception in Social Psychological Experiments. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 67(1), Jan 1967, 1-11. Web. 11 April 2011. Leary, Mark R. & Hoyle, Rick H. [2009]. Handbook of Individual Differences in Social Behavior. Guilford Press, 2009. Milgram, Stanley [1963]. Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378, 1963. Myers, David G. [2005]. Social Psychology - 8th Edition. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Social Psychology Series, 2005. Smith, Eliot R. & Mackie, Diane M. [2000]. Social psychology. Psychology Press, 2000. Zimbardo, Philip [1972]. Pathology of Imprisonment. Society, Vol. 9, No.6, April, 1972. Zimbardo, Philip [2011]. The Stanford Prison Experiment. Ralph Nader Society, 2011. Read More