In Doris Lessing’s article, “Group Minds”, Lessing presents a troubling question: “If we know that individuals will violate their own good common sense and moral codes in order to become accepted members of a group, why then can’t we put this knowledge to use and teach people to be wary of group pressures?” (595). A fundamental conflict that Lessing presents is that persons of the Western world celebrate their individualism, but are ignorant in seeing how groups diminish their individuality. Lessing begins the article stating that people living in the West, or the “free world”, all believe that they make their own individual choices, which then leaves those individuals helpless against an array of pressures that force them to conform in many ways. She continues, explaining how we all live our lives in groups such as family, work groups, social, religious, and political groups. In fact, most people are constantly seeking …show more content…
Asch conducted simple experiments on the influence that group pressures held over an individual. Asch discovered that many individuals could be influenced by groups to deny what their own senses indicated, as shown with this excerpt from the article: “At one extreme, about one quarter of the subjects were completely independent and never agreed with the erroneous judgments of the majority. At the other extreme, some individuals went with the majority nearly all the time. The performances of individuals in this experiment tend to be highly consistent.” (599). Both Lessing and Asch agree that group mentality strongly influences what one thinks and does. Saul McLeod, author of “The Milgram Experiment”, would be likely to agree with Lessing and Asch. McLeod states in his article “Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.”
Milgram’s experiment basically states, “Be that as it may, you’d still probably commit heinous acts under the pressure of authority.” He also, found that obedience was the highest when the person giving the orders was nearby and was perceived as an authority figure, especially if they were from a prestigious institution. This was also true if the victim was depersonalized or placed at a distance such as in another room. Subjects were more likely to comply with orders if they didn’t see anyone else disobeying if there were no role models of defiance.
Asch and Milgram’s experiment was unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the details of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress, Asch and Milgram’s replicated the reality of life. In “Options and Social Pressure” Solomon E. Asch conducts an experiment to show the power of social influence, by using the lengths of sticks that the participants had to match up with the best fit, Asch then developed different scenarios to see how great the power of influence is, but what he discovered is that people always conformed to the majority regardless of how big or small the error was the individual always gave in to the power of the majority.
During World War 2, Hitler is able to gain popularity by manipulating the German people's’ minds and using mod mentality so the German people “know what their eyes are telling them, [but] they choose to ignore it, and go along with the group to belong to the group,” (ABC News 23). People choose to ignore what they see and go with the crowd because they believe that the crowd is always right. This is not always the case because when the Germans follow Hitler, it ensues in chaos. When people become part of a group, they worry about the groups needs and not the individuals. They also can tend to all think alike causing them to lose their independent thoughts. In virtue of this, individuals can become violent and rowdy because a single member of the group is, making everyone else feel that it's okay. Similar to both sources, herd behavior can have a negative affect, even if the victims are not involved directly. Comparably in the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous WIngs” written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an angel falls
... More people followed their direct orders and continued shocking the learners to the very highest voltage. Stanley Milgram’s experiment shows societies that more people abide by the rules of an authority figure under any circumstances rather than follow their own natural instincts. With the use of his well-organized article that appeals to the general public, direct quotes and real world examples, Milgram’s idea is very well-supported. The results of the experiment were in Milgram’s favor and show that people are obedient to authority figures.
“Individualistic cultures, in the western-hemisphere, [such as the United States,] emphasize… personal identity and self-determination. Conformity is far less pervasive in individualistic societies because democratic choices and laissez-faire viewpoints are somewhat considered.”
In 1951, Solomon Asch carried out several experiments on conformity. The aim of these studies was to investigate conformity in a group environment situation. The purpose of these experiments was to see if an individual would be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. Asch believed that conformity reflects on relatively rational process in which people are pressured to change their behaviour. Asch designed experiments to measure the pressure of a group situation upon an individual judgment. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can really play a big role in disbelieving our own senses.
(Hart) Stanley Milgram’s experiment in the way people respond to obedience is one of the most important experiments ever administered. The goal of Milgram’s experiment was to find the desire of the participants to shock a learner in a controlled situation. When the volunteer would be ordered to shock the wrong answers of the victims, Milgram was truly judging and studying how people respond to authority. Milgram discovered something both troubling and awe inspiring about the human race. “Since they were first published in 1963, MIlgram’s sensational findings have been offered as an explanation for mass genocide during the Holocaust and events such as the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison”(Perry 223-224). The way Milgram was able to control the experiment shows how the human race can crack under pressure and obey orders, no matter the consequence. Although, not everything was as it seems when it came to the results of the findings. As Milgram used actors to portray the “victims” in the experiment, so no one was truly being tortured. Milgram wanted to show that pressure can get to anyone, in any situation.
Groupthink relates to the movie The Ghost of Abu Ghraib because Military Intelligence were a cohesive group, so what one did they all did. Even though most of the Military Police didn’t believe what they were doing to the detainees were humanely correct, they did it anyways because their higher rank told them to do it. If they were telling them to do these violent acts, then they must have been okay in doing. Intelligence wanted the information quickly and this was one of the reason why they interrogated the detainees. The military police were angry and everyone wanted answers. The higher ranked intelligence guys thought abuse was the way to get the answers they needed and quickly. The textbook, ORGB, mentions illusions of invulnerability, which is when group members feel that they are above criticism, leading to risk taking. One of the top intelligence guys, Corporal Graner, was hungry for the power. Abusing the detainees made he feel powerful, so he did it more and
In 1951, Solomon Asch set out to update an experiment previously performed by Muzafer Sherif in 1935. Sherif’s experiment attempted to explore peer pressure to conform by seeing if groups of subjects would give the same incorrect answers as the carefully instructed confederates in their group. Asch felt that because there had been no correct answer to Sherif’s experiment, it could not be considered legitimate since there could be no gauge as to what the right or wrong answer was. In his updating of this experiment, he created what is now considered “a classic experiment in Social Psychology” (simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity, 2008) and “the procedure became the standard for hundreds of later experiments” (Social Psychology David G. Myers,
Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience reflecting how this can be destructive in experiences of real life. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid hence useless.
...g factors such as fear of consequences for not obeying, human nature’s willingness to conform, perceived stature of authority and geographical locations. I also believe that due to most individual’s upbringings they will trust and obey anyone in an authoritative position even at the expense of their own moral judgment. I strongly believe that Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a turning point for the field of social psychology and they remind us that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”. Despite these findings it is important to point out it is human nature to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow human beings. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but rather contradictory ethical inclinations that lie deep inside human beings.
Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist, studying various aspects of society. Milgram focused on many important social issues, one of them was obedience. Perhaps his most famous experiment, Milgram tested the extent of authoritative power and how obediences can influence a person’s action . To test his theory on obedience, Milgram had asked a subject, known as the teacher, to shock a “learner” if they fail to remember a set of phrases. The shock was increased every time the learner made an error.
Group Pressure In 1951, Solomon Asch fulfilled a very famous experiment in the psychology world. Asch conducted an experiment in group pressure to achieve conformity, Stark’s quoted “Can group pressure cause us to deny the obvious, even physical evidence?”. Do we believe that we are able to hold on our opinions when everyone else are disagreeing with us?. Solomon Asch answered all these questions in his experiment.
An authority figure plays a big role on how others acts and why they act that way. Stanley Milgram is a social psychologist who started an experiment in 1960. Stanley Milgram gathered Germans to prove if they different when it comes to following authority after the destruction
34). Adams and Balfour (2009) cite social psychologist Stanley Milgram researched; Milgram studied the effect of authority on obedience. He concluded that people obey, against their own better judgment, out of fear or out of a desire to appear cooperative. Individuals may see themselves responsible for their own actions, however, an “argentic shift” may occur, in which they no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions, but merely as an agent, carrying out the instructions of another person. (Adams & Balfour, 2009, p. 36).