Social Influence - Research Paper Example

Social Influence Paper Psychologists have been intrigued in determining the influence of external factors to a person’s behavior. Society, in general, has shown significant impact in the way a person reacts and responds to various stimuli, regardless of what one’s perceived values, philosophies and definitions of right and wrong. The videos manifesting social psychology experiments exemplified in three of the most famous studies: Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, Milgram’s Obedience Study, and Asch’s Conformity Study, attest to human behavior being defined by social norms and group action.

The historical event that had been controversial in terms of the nature of confounding scenarios that led to the deaths of 900 people in the Jonestown massacre was examined in the light of determining sociophychological environmental factors that impinged on its occurrence. In this regard, the essay aims to proffer issues pertaining to analyzing the Jonestown tragedy by initially providing a brief historical account, prior to identifying the crucial sociophychological environmental factors that influenced it. . The mass murder was apparently decided on by Jones, after a U.S. Congressional member, Leo Ryan, visited their place to investigate on alleged “beatings, kidnapping, sexual abuse and mysterious deaths leaked out in the press” (Judge, 1985, par. 5). On fears of what Ryan would divulge when he returns to the U.S., he was apparently murdered together with reporters allegedly in his group.

Sociopscyhological Environmental Factors The event was considered a socially disturbing phenomenon due to the number of culturally diverse people involved in the reported mass suicide, including women and young children. Psychological factors in the event deemed as “conflict situations inside the human brain resulting in reduced human performance” (ExproBase, 2008, p. 1) were the apparent mass suicide, breach of isolation leading to exposure, fear of rejection, discrimination and stigma from societies views.

Finally, environmental factors that influence the Jonestown massacre were the political pressures impinging on the cult’s activities, the prying eyes of media, the alleged participation of both Guyanese and American governments in covering-up the facts of the massive deaths. Apparently, as revealed by Judge (1985), Jonestown was not a religious cult, but “an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control. A close study of Senator Ervin's 1974 report, Individual Rights and the Government's Role in Behavior Modification, shows that these agencies had certain "target populations" in mind, for both individual and mass control.

Blacks, women, prisoners, the elderly, the young, and inmates of