The Concepts of Obedience and Conformity - Essay Example

Social Influence. Conformity and Obedience by When people hear the word obedience they perceive it most commonly as something negative and having long-term consequences. However, obedience is the foundation of any society and thus cannot be regarded as either negative or positive concept. It is the degree of obedience which is also closely connected to conformity and the direction of this obedience that can have harmful or positive effects for people (Andrew, 2009). In this paper I am going to analyze the concepts of obedience and conformity and find out how a person should regard and apply these concepts in personal lives. So generally obedience can be explained as the readiness to execute the orders received from an authoritive figure. Since the establishment of law in civilized countries of the world obedience has become a compulsory elemnent that helps to keep people from anarchy.Obedience has a number of important functions which can be best demonstrated on simple examples. Obedience is guarnatee of wellbeing of the citizens and it is crucial for military service. When a soldier refuses to execute the orders of a general, he can put others in the risky and death threatening situations. Obedience is also a guarantee of productivity. When an employee neglects his responsibilities and does not comply with the orders of his boss, he can become the reason of a great loss for a company or a factory. Obedience is the first condition of social stability and the absence of chaos (Berstein, 1999). Obedience is also central concept in any religion, Christianity and Buddhism in particular. The person who chosses to go by a religious path obliges to obey more experienced and wiser teachers. St. Thomas Aquinas regards obedience in termas of religion as a positive phenomenon that arises from the natural and positive law. He states that the idea that a human being cannot be subordinated to another person confronts the prescriptions of God, and that obedience is the compliance with tha natural order of things (Delany, 2011). There is also a fine line between obedience and meeknes, the readiness to accept life with all its struggles and problems humbly and peacefully. So the society as well as religion encourage obedience with all possible methods because obedience is the only and the most effective methods of keeping people under control without negative reference to this very term. Confirmity is the issue that is closely connected to obedience and probbaly arises from it as from more general and all-encompassing notion. According to Brecker, Olson & Wigglis, conformity can be regarded as any change of behavior by a person or a group of people with the aim of fitting into society. It is necessary to understand that conformity does not refer to the change of beliefs and attitudes, it describes behavior alternations under the influence of peers, more authoritive people or society in general (Breckler, Olson, & Wiggins, Social Psychology Alive, 2006). Conformity stems from the desire of a person to be liked and accepted by society and normative social influence serves as the basis of this acceptance. In other words, a person is influenced by the socity because he needs the socity to perceive him as an equal member. Informational social influence becomes a component of normative social influence and manifests itself in the acceptance of somebody else`s opinion and the information given by him/her as more accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. The negative effect of such acceptance is obvious on the exapmple of different sectes in which the authority of leaders becomes undisputable. The incident which is widely known as Waco Siege can serve as a good illustration of informational influence which led to negative results. The leader of the sect seeing himself as a prophet persuaded more than 100 to submit to him. It led to the financial, psychological, and even physiological control of the sectants who became voluntary slaves on his estate. People engaged into physical labor under the leadeship of the “prophet” and women have become wives of the leader and refused from living with their husbands. Eventually, itresulted in the sige of the estate where the sect was living and alleged suicide of 82 its members (Sturken & Dore, 2007). It is surprising how such blind conformity can be present in the XXI century in such a developped country as the USA. Most people become conformists quite naturally when they grow up by sticking to rules, wearing in a socially acceptable way, and dedicating most of their free time to working. However, some people find it more natural to remain non-conformists which becomes obvious in their submitting to subcultures. Surprisingly or not when being given power people are prone to abuse it demonstrate sadistic inclinations. Another threatening aspect is the loss of individuality by those who choose conformity and obedience as leading lines in their behavior. And when people lose their orientation in reality and individuality they turn into robots carrying out all orders which can be inhumane and hurt others. History knows a number of examples when obedience and mindless conformity led to horrible consequences and numerous victims. Nazi Germany is probably the brightest and the most eloquent of all, however, communism in the USSR can also be regarded as another example. Both these countries got involved into the most serious conflict of the civilization-World War II. The problem is Hitler with his incredible gift of persuation could make all the nation believe in their mission but still he could not make each an every soldier in Nazi army obey his orders and they still some minimal choice. However, it turned out that Germans transformed into some powerful machine that was destroying countries and nations on their way and the country turned into “genocide state”. During the holocaust more than six million of Jewish people killed only due to the nationality by Third Reich and their allies. So literally more than 20 million people who served Nazi army in this or that period of the state existence found it right and acceptable to kill Jews just because they were proclaimed enemies of the state without experincing personal hatred to them. Another case is the policy of Communist Party which turned people into slaves of Red propaganda forcing millions to make denonciations on their neighbours and even relatives. It is also incredible how the party with its illusory ideas could become so allmighty in the consciousness of the nation that they believed that yesterday friends were their enemies. Psychologists were amazed by the the degree of obedience of Germans and aimed to study it to understand what was special about it. The experiments conducted by Asc, Milgram, and Zimbardo demonstrated how easily a human individuality can be supressed under the authority and the obedience can lead to its subversion. Milgrem started the research to clear the question regarding the exceptional obedience of German citizens in the years of Nazi domination who participated in destruction of millions of innocent people in concentration camps. After debugging of the experimental techniques in the United States Milgrem planned to go with them to Germany which inhabitants as he believed, are very inclined to obedience. However, after the first experiment which is carried out by him to New Heyvene (State of Connecticut) it became clear that there was no need of travelling abroad because he determined that people can go very far hurting others obeying experimentators. Being given instructions to inflict the voltage from 300 to 450 V on other people the participants were tested in the ability to inflict maximum voltage despite evident harm to others. Unexpectedly to Milgram and his colleagues, 26 out of 40 participants manged to increase the voltage up to 450V while others stopped on different stages. The resercher himself concluded that most ordinary people can become “agents in destructive processes” even when the negative effect from their actions is evident and contradictics human morality (Milgram, 1963). Psychologists also determined that the most fruitful results from obedience were received if participants were involved into gradual commitment. It means that they were not asked to obey to the most dissonnat orders immediately and the seriousness of their actions was gradually increasing. Thus in Milgrame`s experiment participants were increasinmg the voltage gradually adapting to the personal cognitive dissonance between orders and physical pain of victims. The Stanford prison psychological experiment which was conducted in 1971 by the American psychologist Philip Zimbardo was aimed to examine the reaction of a person to restriction of freedom, conditions of prison life, and on influence of the imposed social roles on behavior. Volunteers played roles of security guards and prisoners and lived in the conditional prison arranged in the cellar of faculty of Psychology at Stanford. Prisoners and security guards adapted incredibly quickly to their roles, and, contrary to the expectations, the control under the experiment was lost. Many guards demonstrated sadistic inclinations, and prisoners were strongly morally traumatized with psychological torture and two were excluded from experiment before the end of the experiment time (Zimbardo et al., 1973). The whole study was completed a week earlier due to the objection of one of the observants. Overall the experiment showed how easily people turn to sadism under a certain ideology and authority while the degree of psychological resistance of most people in prison conditions are very low. The conformity was best studied in famous Asch`s experiment in which he tested the ability of people to assert one`s individuality. The reseracher asked participants to perform one simple task individually and in groups. When being questioned individually people gave correct answers mostly but under the influence of the group ( other members chose wrong answers by purpose) ¾ of participants conformed with the answer of a group not to become a “black sheep”. This experiment has become a good example of normative influence. Conformity and obedience are very complex and all-encompassing phenomena and only the context in which they are used give them either positive or negative meaning. Nobody will argue that they are crucial for maintaining control over the society. On the one hand, it gives people the sense of safety and certainity about tomorrow. On the other hand, it can be a tool in the hands of destructive powers who know how to exploit it. Thus, some Nazi later were surprised to learn about the hatred of Jewish people and claimed that they were simply following the orders. Obeying to each order should personally questionned and analyzed from moral, humane, and religious perspectives. People are free to make choices and in cases when disobedience means avoiding inflicting pain on others it must be the choice. Conformity also has to be questioned and challenged and should never be sold for the loss of personal dignity and self-awareness References Asch, S.E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.),Groups, Leadership and Men. Pittsburg, PA: Carnegie Press.  Berstein, D.A. (1988). Psychology. Houghton Mifflin Company Breckler, S. J., Olson, J. M., & Wiggins, E. C. (2006). Social Psychology Alive. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.  Colman, A. (2009). A Dictionary of Psychology. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press Delany, J. (1911). Obedience. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11181c.htm Milgram, Stanley (1963).Behavioral Study of Obedience, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378. Sturken, J. & Dore, M. (, 2007). "Remembering the Waco Siege". ABC News Haney, C; Banks, C.; Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison, International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1: 69–97. Read More