Social Influence Part I, II

by larc 32 Replies latest jw friends

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  larc

  Hello brothers and sisters

  Lately, there has been a lot of discussion, re: who is to blame, the organization, the elders, the individual, or all of the above.

  I believe that all of the above were trapped in a bad system. I would like to present some findings from Social Psychology to illustrate the influences that make is very difficult for the individual to express free will, as we understand it. The research will be presented from the most ambiguous of situations to the most structured.

  Sherif
  
  He used a perceptual phenomena to show how vulnerable we are to the influence of others, the autokinetic effect. This phenomena occurs when a person is placed in a totally dark room and a tiny dot of light is shown on a wall. After awhile the tiny light appears to the person to be moving around. It moves in a random fashion and moves differently for different people. Now, if you have two people sit in a room and report out loud, how much movement there is, an amazing thing happens. Their answers become similiar. Feedback from a random event causes people to start to agree with each other. Agreement on a random event. Isn't that something?

  Implications: Take something as ambiguous as the Bible, especially the prophecy books and you find people agreeing on the most ambiguous of information there is. So now, we have different groups who agree on this fuzzy stuff and they argue with others who have a different belief of this fuzzy stuff. It is like arguing over what is the right perception of a Rorschach Inkblot. Guess what. There is no correct answer. Your answer tells more about you than it does about the blot. That is why it is a useful test.

  Next time, Soloman Asch and what the length of lines tells us about conformity, followed by Zimbardo, and prison riot on a college campus.
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  hungerartist

  Well put Larc,

  I suppose you have been doing much reading about 'suggestibility'.

  I read about a study in which the reseachers 'suggested' by clever questions that a person who just visited Disneyland had met WARNER BROTHERS characters. (Now have you ever seen Batman at Disneyland?)

  They even got people to elaborate by saying they took photos with these characters! All off which never happened at all!

  The human memory is not perfect.

  See the movie Memento, everyone. You'll get a trip from that one.

  I hunger for knowledge...

  "Every revolution evaporates and leaves only the slime of a new bureaucracy" ~ Franz Kafka
• 

  larc

  hungerartist,

  Suggestibility is another interesting phenomena. If a voodoo witch doctor puts a curse on someone, that person will die of fright, but only if they have found out that they have been cursed. If they don't hear about it, they do just fine. The power of the mind and what it can come to believe is incredable.
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  JeffT

  Interesting point.

  The reason the navigation lights on planes flash is to bypass the perceptual problem you describe. When the light flashes the brain registers exactly where it is. If it was steady the brain would be seeing it in other places.

  For the record, ever since I got out of the borg, I've thought that some parts of the Bible are there to make us think about he questions, not to provide the answers.
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  larc

  JeffT,

  That is interesting. It is another example of how the brain, though a powerful computer, can be become confused and disoriented. Thank you for the information.
• 

  larc

  Part II

  In my first post, I pointed out that in ambiguous situations, people will use feedback from each other to come to common agreement. This occurs even when agreement is not justified.

  Now, let us consider how people make decisions in the face of disagreement. Solomon Asch asked persons to make simple, easy judgements regarding the length of lines. In this experiment, four of the persons were told to make wrong judgements on some of the trials. Now, what would the fifth person do when four others disagreed with his own obvious perceptions. In about 2/3rd's of the cases, the person went along with the group rather than disagreeing.

  Implications: Four elders agree and one sees obvious problems with their decision. What is the fifth elder likely to do? Conform to the group.

  Now let us look at the role someone is given and how it affects their behavior. Phillip Zimbardo conducted a study where he asked one group of college students to play the role of prisoner in an actual jail and the other group to play the role of jailors. This study was to be conducted for a full week. After just three days, Zimbardo had to stop the experiment because the jailors were taking their role too seriously. They became oppressive and harsh and the rules of the game made this possible.
  The prisoners became outraged and Zimbardo nearly had a riot on his hands.

  One very important fact should be kept in mind. The students were assigned their roled randomly, so the oppressive behaviour of the prison guards and the lashing out by the prisoners can not be accounted for by personality differences between the two groups. The behavioral differences are soley the result of the roles each group played.

  Implications: The role you are in greatly affects you.

  I have heard of factory workers who were promoted to the level of supervisor. Despite the fact that they were workers themselves at one time, some of them become very oppressive in their new role. The role of elder is not immune from this. Some nice publishers become oppressive elders. If the system, whether it is a factory or a religion does not anticipate this, have and build something into the system to deal with it they will have major problems on their hands.

  Next time: some shocking results on the subject of obedience to authority.
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  bigboi

  Next time: some shocking results on the subject of obedience to authority.

  That would be interesting. Especiallyif you're planning on basing your next addition on Dr. Stanley Milgram's experiment.

  ONE....

  bigboi
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  OUTLAW

  Hey larc,the Phillip Zimbardo experiment.I saw that on tape,on one of the educational channels.Things got pretty bizarre...OUTLAW
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  larc

  Bingo, bigboi, that's the one. If anyone sees a video of this one, they will find it chilling.

  Outlaw, I used to show my students lots of videos. The have much more impact that reading about it, as you can attest.

  A side note: Zimbardo had a female graduate who stood up to his authority and convinced him to stop the experiment. This very unusual behavior for a grad. student, since their profs have enormous power over them. Zimbardo was so impressed with this young female, that he married her.
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  refiners fire

  Bring on Zimbardo.
  I wanna see that one....oh! Its already there!....okay..

  I suppose you already read Sargents "Battle for the mind".
  Pretty old, know any updated stuff available?Im pretty interested.
  Maos thought reform schools worked on the principle demonstrated with the spot of light, I guess,shift their opinions based on the opinions of others,feedback.
  Ive suspected this is the reason (one of them) these churches like to outnumber the recruit while studying with them. Two opinions to one,causes shift to agreement.
  The Mormons like to outnumber recuits 5, 6 to 1. An even better chance of compliance and shift.
  The mormons like to sow confussion in the minds of new recruits, you expect so and so to be at your study, and its actually some other guy youve never met,they lie about it, they also jerk you around with location, they tell you to go to a certain address, you go there, then theres a phone call, now you have to go somewhere else.
  They run you around like musical chairs.
  They also seek to induce emotional response in you, the guys studying with you start crying, next, you feel like crying too.
  Wonder what the emotional response thing has to do with increasing the chances of conversion. Larc??