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Social psychology human nature
Social psychology human nature
Social psychology human nature
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In order to analyze a movie from a social psychology standpoint, we have chosen the American thriller Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese that was released in 2010. While doing that, we were looking at four different aspects that are relevant throughout the whole storyline. 2. Plot In 1954, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels is assigned together with his partner Chuck Aule, to conduct investigations about a woman that apparently disappeared from a sanatorium, located on Shutter Island near Boston. While having his personal reasons to go on the island, Teddy suspects the mental hospital for carrying out human experiments, in order to sedate the patients. In the end, it comes to light that Teddy Daniels is actually suffering himself by a psychological illness and that the sanatorium tried to heal him by letting him believe that he is a Marshall trying to solve a case, in order to bring him back to reality. 3. Obedience, conformity and compliance Obedience is a social influence where a person acts in a certain way while following an order of an authority …show more content…
A good example is displayed in the scene, where Teddy and his military fellows shot the SS soldiers after the liberation of the concentration center in Dachau. Although the Americans knew that they should not simply shoot the Germans, they still did it and followed the order of their superiors. This example can be also seen as conformity where “a person being influenced by the group changes his attitudes and beliefs” in order to fit in (Scott Constable, Zachary Shuler, Lucretia Klaber, & Mick Rakauskas, March 24, 2015). Assuming that Teddy was alone, he would have probably acted differently. However, the feeling of belonging to a group and acting in a specific way, in order to be accepted is a common behavior of the human
We live in a society where each individual has their own set of thoughts and beliefs. Occasionally one will modify their beliefs and behavior to coincide with a group. This is an example of social influence. Social influence has three main components; conformity, compliance and obedience. The concept of compliance is similar to conformity, however there is a slight difference. Compliance only requires a person to perform a task. The person does not have to agree or disagree with the assignment, just simply complete it. Conformity requires the person being influenced to change their attitudes and or beliefs. An example of this aspect of social psychology is the holocaust in World War II. Adolph Eichmann was a Nazi officer responsible for filling up death camps in Germany. After the war he went on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. On May 31, 1962, he was sentenced to death for the horrible crimes he committed. His defense was "Why me? Why not the local policemen, thousands of them? They would have been shot if they had refused to round up the Jews for the death camps. Why not hang them for not wanting to be shot? Why me? Everybody killed the Jews". A few months after the start of Eichmann’s trial, Stanley Milgram instituted an experiment testing ones obedience to authority. He wanted to find out if good people could do atrocious things if they were just obeying authority. Was Eichmann and millions of others in Nazi Germany decent people who were just following orders? Some other famous experiments that have taken place to test the waters of social psychology are Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments, all ...
Compliance is “a form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another”, whilst Obedience is “a form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more others to perform some actions” (Baron, R.A. & Branscombe, N.R., 2014, p. 255). These two terms are methods of social influence, particularly prominent in Milgram’s study on obedience. Milgram’s study is a psychological experiment focusing on whether or not people would obey authority figures, even when the instructions given were morally wrong. Back then; the terms of the experiment were completely acceptable, but due to the strict controls of contemporary psychology today, this test would be impossible to repeat. The trial breaches many ethical factors
Solomon Asch developed and ran an experiment regarding the power of conformity that affects most populations. Psychologists have been attempting to fully understand the mental workings behind why people are so easily pressured into following others for the longest time. The main focus of psychologists, is to figure and understand what the causes are behind social conformity. Numerous terms are brought up when studying conformity. The “unspoken rules or guidelines for behavior in a group” (Hock 293) are labeled as social norms. When individuals are placed in large groups, the tendency is to lean with whatever the majority of the group thinks. The regular behavior of the individual tends to readjust to appease the superior crowd.
Obedience is when you do something you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority. As little kids we are taught to follow the rules of authority, weather it is a positive or negative effect. Stanley Milgram, the author of “The perils of Obedience” writes his experiment about how people follow the direction of an authority figure, and how it could be a threat. On the other hand Diana Baumrind article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience,” is about how Milgram’s experiment was inhumane and how it is not valid. While both authors address how people obey an authority figure, Milgram focuses more on how his experiment was successful while Baumrind seems more concerned more with how Milgram’s experiment was flawed and
Through my research and findings of obedience to authority this ancient dilemma is somewhat confusing but needs understanding. Problem with obedience to authority has raised a question to why people obey or disobey and if there are any right time to obey or not to obey. Through observation of many standpoints on obedience and disobedience to authority, and determined through detailed examination conducted by Milgram “The Perils Of Obedience,” Doris Lessing “Group Minds” and Shirley Jackson “The Lottery”. We have to examine this information in hopes of understanding or at least be able to draw our own theories that can be supported and proven on this subject.
Social Psychology is the study of how we think and relate to other people. These psychologists focused on how the social situation influences others behavior. We see social influences everywhere we go, but might not notice it. Like when watching a movie for fun you do not notice it as much as when you are actually looking for the behaviors, like in the film The Breakfast Club. There are several examples of social psychological behaviors in the film.
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
In Martin Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds himself investigating a missing person case in an insane asylum found on a secluded, mysterious island. As Daniels’s search for the missing patient persists, this case and the doctors of the asylum become progressively more suspicious. In fact, Daniels’s new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) appears wary about their reasoning for being at the asylum as if the patient’s disappearance was merely an excuse to allure the two onto the island. A couple of days later the missing patient is found without the Marshals’ help. When Daniels is ready to leave the island he asks the head doctor where his partner is and the doctor states that Daniels came alone to the island. Baffled by this statement, Daniels is
In the beginning of Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane, Teddy Daniels believes he is a U.S. Marshal sent to Shutter Island with his partner, Chuck, to investigate the case of an escaped patient, Rachel Solando. Rachel Solando is said to be a very dangerous patient who murdered her three children. She had somehow escaped her cell in the mental ward and is somewhere on the island. As soon as Teddy and Chuck hop of the ferry and onto the desolate island, they’re greeted with aloofness and suspicion. None of the employees seem to give them any real evidence of the missing patient and their answers seem scripted. The guards, warden and doctors always seem to be keeping an eye out for them. When they meet with the head psychologist, Dr. Cawley, seems congenial but holds back most information he knows about Rachel Solando. Teddy believes that the information Dr. Cawley is holding back is crucial to the investigation. He speaks in psychobabble and allusively. All the patients they interview, seem to treat the marshals quite hostile and play around with them. One patient scribbles on Teddy’s notebook to run away from this mental hospital. While searching Rachel’s room they find a clue she left behind, the Law of Four. Teddy later learns that all the numbers in the Law of Four suggest that there are sixty-seven patients on Shutter Island, rather than the sixty-six everyone presumed there were. A quick camaraderie develops between Teddy and Chuck as they search around the island. Despite the monster hurricane bearing down on the island, Teddy remains determined and strong. His character is brave and he is quite clever. He is able to depict meanings of clues quickly. . Teddy finds cryptic clues in odd locations along the island. Teddy begins ...
This movie portrays so many of the social-psychological principles. One that is really noticeable is the person perception principle. In the scene
Conformity is one kind of psychology behavior .The behavior often happened in the group .Also the behavior always happen in the people life or study !There are 3 types response to social influence in the psychology zone .first is compliance ,scorned one is identification ,last one is internalization .Compliance is publicly conforming to the behavior or views of others in a group but privately maintaining one’s own views.For example:when the personal with a group of friends who support a particular basketball team ,the personal might not reveal that you support a different one ,even if asked directly .Identification is adopting the views of or behavior of a group both public and privately cause you value membership of that group .For example:when the people from long away move to the university ,they may begin to question the life style ,they had previously taken for granted .New students often enthusiastically adopt the dress and behave again aways young student do this .internalization is a conversion or true change of private views to match these of the group .For example :a person seating for some greater meaning to life maybe influenced to convert to a religious faith if the member of that faith seem able to provide the answers being searched for
Conformity is a concept that has intrigued psychologists for decades; a concept that has been the foundation of numerous studies, books, and that has been subtly woven into the media. Most of the research done on conformity has to do with what can cause conforming behavior and when conforming behavior is most prevalent. There are generally two types of influences that can cause conforming behavior, informational social influences and normative social influence. Both deal with the when and why of conformity in society and what situations typically cause a group or one or two people to conform. The most powerful and dangerous type of conformity is conformity to authority, which can cause people to obey orders that they would normally not follow in any other situation. With that being said, informational social influence can fuel conforming behavior, especially in instances when the situation is a crisis, ambiguous, and when other people in the situation have authority or expertise.
While watching this movie I noticed many social psychology concepts throughout. I have never paid attention to these concepts when watching the movie before, so it was interesting to pay close attention and see how many came up. The movie displays foot-in-the door technique, social facilitation, deindividuation, ingroup, scapegoat theory, among many others. Being a very real and honest movie, it is easy to understand why so many social psychology concepts are present. Our textbook defines social psychology to be, “the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior, feelings and thought in social situation” (Baron & Branscombe, 2012). There are many strong characters within the movie, and they display these concepts.
To come to understand why people act with deviant behavior, we must comprehend how society brings about the acceptance of basic norms. The “techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in a society” are called social control (Schaefer, 2009). As we respect and acknowledge these social norms we expect others to do so as well. Therefore, according to our behavior sanctions are carried out whether they are positive or negative. Conformity, which refers to “going along with peers, people of our own status who have no special right to direct our behavior” (Schaefer, 2009), is one way social control occurs in a group level which influence the way we act. On the other hand, obedience is the compliance with a higher authority, resulting in social control at a societal level. The sanctions used to promote these factors can be informal and formal social control. Informal social control can be very casual in enforcing social norms by using body language or other forms of discipline, however formal social control is carried out by authorized agents when desired behavior is not obtained by informal sancti...