The Findings from Social Influence Research
Forty male volunteers from a self selected sample took part in a
controlled observational study, which they were deceived into thinking
was a test of learning. The naïve participant was always assigned the
role of 'teacher' and a confederate played the role of 'learner'. A
word association test was the learning task, and the naïve participant
was instructed to deliver an electric shock to the learner for each
incorrect answer. The teacher and the learner were in separate rooms
with no voice contact. The learner sitting in another room gave mainly
wrong answers and received his fake shocks in silence until they
reached 300 volts. At this point he pounded on the wall and then gave
no response to the next question. This was repeated at 315 volts and
from then on said/did nothing. If the 'teacher' asked to stop, the
experimenter had a set of 'prods' to repeat, such as saying, ' it is
absolutely essential that you continue ' or ' you have no other
choice, you must go on '.
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Milgram found that all participants gave shocks up to the 300 volt
level and 65% of participants continued to the highest level, 450
volts. This contradicted the predicted results that 3% or less would
reach 450 volts. There were marked effects on the naïve participants'
behaviour, with most showing signs of extreme tension. For example,
they trembled, sweated, stuttered, groaned and dug their fingernails
into their flesh.
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There were many ethical issues raised in this study, for example the
lack of informed consent, deception and debriefing. The participants
were deceived about the nature of the study. Milgram told his
participants that they were involved in a study of the effects of
punishment on learning. This therefore denied them the right to
provide informed consent. At the end of the study they were debriefed
about its true purpose ad introduced to the confederate to be
reassured that all was well.
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However Milgram argued that the experiment would be meaningless
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
Parker focuses the majority of his writing on answering the question of whether or not the experiment uncovers any new information regarding obedience (100). Obstinately providing her opinion on this matter, Baumrind states in the beginning of her article that she believes that obedience and suggestibility cannot be realistically studied in a laboratory due to the anxiety in the environment (90). Supporting Baumrind’s opinionated claim, however, Parker effectively prompts readers to reconsider their views by describing a specific supporting scenario in which one of the subjects expresses that throughout the experiment he or she could not believe that Yale would conduct such a dangerous experiment (101). Parker logically interprets that subjects with similar suspicions as this one likely continued to obey the orders despite their disbelief due to the laboratory setting, suggesting that in the real world the consequences of violent actions are more obvious than in a test and that the experiment cannot be fully applied when studying obedience under authentic circumstances (101). Agreeing with Parker, Gina Perry, a psychologist and published author, describes the importance of the subjects’ belief in the validity of the shock machine in her article, “The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments.” Perry
Social Influence Research - Do the Ends Justify the Means? To what extent does the importance of social influence research, justify the methods used in its investigation? The debate about ethics in psychology focuses on two areas: protection of participants and benefiting society. This is a double obligation dilemma as if some psychologists are not allowed to do certain experiments because of ethical restraints; this can cause problems with validity.
Sitting in their favorite coffee shop Rachel, Ross, Joey, Monica, and Phoebe were reminiscing about the old days when they used to live within walking distances from one another. Living in different cities and leading busy lives they had not seen each other in months. Their chatter came to a halt as Chandler pranced in late.
Society is ever changing and the people are just the same. Throughout history, it is shown that people change and mold to their surroundings. But when a deeper look is taken it is revealed that there is a minority that is unwilling or unable to fit these standards as most people do. These people tend to be forced into seclusion or made to fend for themselves. This is shown through the colonization of America and up into more recent times. The Native Americans are the first to make a life on this land, and when the English set up a new society, the Natives are forced onto smaller and smaller plots of land until forced to conform or to live on a reservation. The idea of this societal conformity is shown in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie, a short story author. Society's pressure to improve an individual living differently is hurting more than it is helping.
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
In order to understand the phenomena of obedience and disobedience, it is essential to understand the causes of these behaviors. The first and most common cause of both obedience and disobedience is authority. Countless examples demonstrate the significant impact of authority on a person’s behavior. The Milgram Experiment, conducted in 1963 by a Yale psychologist, was a prime illustration of how authority can greatly influence the actions of an individual. In the Milgram Experiment, there were two volunteers who were assigned the roles of either the “teacher” or the “learner.” The teacher would ask the learner a series of questions and if the learner answered a question incorrectly, the teacher issued an electric shock to the learner, increasing
The experiment was conducted at Yale University and it involved two sets of subjects, teachers and learners. The learners were in fact the confederates where as the teachers, who were the focus of the experiment, were just ordinary people who decided to participate. When taken into the room subjects are explained that they are participating in an experiment on effects of punishment on learning. Subject are then explained that teacher is to read a list of things to learner and then to ask him questions about the list. If the learner answers correctly teacher is to move on, where as if the answer is wrong teacher is to shock learner using the electric shock generator. After both parties agreed the learner is strapped into a chair and the teacher is led to a room where he is seated in front of a large shock generator. First thing the teacher notices is a large horizontal line of switches ranging from 15 volts all the way up to 450 volts, and so there would be no confusion they are also labeled as slight shock, severe shock and so on to DANGER-SEVERE SHOCK. Teacher is ...
Since being introduced in the 1990s, social networking sites have taken over people’s lives. From Facebook to Twitter and Snapchat to Instagram, these social networking sites are included in our day to day life. People use these sites to keep in touch with each other and the world. As a prominent fixture of our lives, social networking has a great influence over our opinions, decisions, and perspectives. Out of all its users, teenagers are the most susceptible to social networking’s influence; it can lead them to living an ethically right life that fosters learning and goodwill, or an ethically wrong life that encourages addictions and bad behavior.
Social media has been very popular due to different social networking sites, blog sites and video sites including podcasts. Social media sites run by a particular group or person cannot avoid to be biased though and we all know this. There are some who pays a particular domain or site to say or do their bidding and that is normal part of the social media. With the use of social media, we can gather a lot of information as well considering that this information comes from different group of people based on their backgrounds and point of view as well as their cultural differences.
In, Body Work by Sara Paretsky, the Guaman family’s homophobia damages their family by causing both Allie’s rape and death, and the covering up of them. Homophobia manages to cause all of this damage because it is a powerful social control mechanism, meaning it leads individuals towards conformity, and shames and or ostracizes those who don’t conform to the societal norm. In this case, the societal norm is heterosexuality, and homosexuals are shamed and ostracized for deviating from that norm. Allie is ashamed of being a lesbian and decides to serve in Iraq in the hope that she can repent for her “sins,” and her family is so ashamed of her homosexuality that they must deny it, which allows Tintrey to cover up the truth behind Allie’s death.
A man by the name of Stanley Milgram, Yale University psychologist, decided to test the power of peer pressure on humans in 1961. In his experiment, three people took part: the three were given the titles of experimenter, learner (victim), and teacher. The only true participant in the experiment was the teacher, the learner was an actor trained for the experiment; thus, the teacher was under the impression that everyone was a selected participant. The teacher and the learner were then placed in separate rooms where no visualization took place, but where communication was still in effect. The teacher was given an electric shock to emulate what the learner would be receiving throughout the experiment; the learner was then ordered by the teacher to answer a set of questions that would determine if the person would be shocked or not. For each incorrect answer the learner received a shock (in actuality not a real shock, but the teacher was under the impression it was) ...
The original baseline experiment (Milgram, 1963), took place at Yale University, with 40 participants. Each participant would arrive at the laboratory to meet the confederate (whom they thought was another participant). In the laboratory room there was a ‘shock generator’, presented as a machine that could deliver a graduated amount of shocks, increasing by 15-volt intervals, with a maximum of 450 volts. In fact, it could only administer 45 volts, and this was administered to the participant, to convince them the machine was real. The participant (who was the teacher) and the experimenter were in a separate room from the learner, with the participant asking the learner simple word-pairing que...
Today’s society revolves around social media and impacts each person in a different way. The occurrence of giving and receiving “likes” and the desire of today’s teens to increase views, shares, comments, and likes are not only helping improve someone’s profile, but also of the brands that they like. As companies observe the data collected, the social media marketers work together to carefully turn “likes” into profit for the brand. People have no idea what the value of liking something is. The more teens that utilize social media, the more money companies are likely to make.
Theory of social penetration Introduction In class, we discussed and later investigated different theories about human relationships. All these theories examined why and how people relate to each other, as well as tried to explain why they choose a particular relationship and not others. I came across the theory of Social Penetration while reading after one of our classes. Two American sociologists, Altman and Taylor, developed the theory. They insist, ".relations include various levels of intimacy, exchange or degree of social penetration.