5
Asch S. E. ( 1956). "Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority". Psychological Monographshttp://psyc604.stasson.org/Asch1956.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Asch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
Milgram, Stanley (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371–8
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.biblio.unitn.it/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=37855e60-eb17-4115-abaa-e748e4c1b621%40sessionmgr4&hid=14
Milgram, Stanley GROUP PRESSURE AND ACTION AGAINST A PERSON. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology , Aug1964, Vol. 69 Issue 2, p137-143
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.biblio.unitn.it/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=37855e60-eb17-4115-abaa-e748e4c1b621%40sessionmgr4&hid=14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
A. King, The word of command, 2006
http://afs.sagepub.com/content/32/4/493.full.pdf+html
A. K. Goldsworthy, The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle 1997
http://www.xlegio.ru/pdfs/othismos.pdf
Communication and Cohesion in the Military - Anthony King
RispondiEliminaSocial cohesion: the set of behaviors and the bonds of affinity and solidarity among individuals and communities, aimed to mitigate constructively inequalities relating to social, economic, cultural, ethnic.
Émile Durkheim, The elementary forms of religious life: historically, the first factor of social cohesion has been and remains the religion.
Military institutions depend on a level of SOCIAL COHESION that is matched in few other social groups. There is a common belief that in military institutions, the ritual decisive for the creation of the group is based on the military comradeship. According to A. King, the fundamental social rituals for the army are determined by the collective action that the military play together during training: the formal collective drills are central to the relations between soldiers and essential in creating social cohesion in combat. Military organizations become more effective as who takes part engages in established forms of collective drill.
However, the fundamental prerequisite for social cohesion is cOMMUNICATION.
But that's not all: at the same time having an effective communication is essential to have a successful conduct of collective exercises. But what we mean for "effective communication"? An effective communication is the result that is achieved through a training designed in two ways:
-teach soldiers to understand the meaning of a shared set of symbols
-act collectively on the soldiers.
In the first point we can see how becomes imperative that soldiers recognize what collective military practices symbols imply: if this does not happen there will be no social cohesion. This means that the soldiers will be militarily ineffective. For the second point, why become important doing training together between soldiers? Because once soldiers have been undergoing training regimes together, they will be oriented to these common symbols and bound to act upon them.
As a result, the collective exercises for military become strong point for the success, and thus essential.
This does not exclude the theories that argue that truly personal and intimate relationships play a role in the formation of primary groups. Rather we can see that the soldiers who are able to get access to more personal and intimate interactions are those who have already demonstrated to be able to contribute to the achievement of the goals of the military collective group.
Stanely Milgram Study In understanding group pressure and action against a person
RispondiEliminaI have previously read about this experiment, as it is considered one of the controversial studies ever developed in understanding people reaction to peer pressure.
Basically, Stanely share Asch vision for how people lean to peer pressure as it could be reflected in number of forms such as action and signal responses. However, it’s not as simple. For example, I could verbally conform upon an idea or a belief when I am with a group of people but I truly don’t believe in it and will never act upon it. But also, in other cases I might think I truly agree with an idea but when in action I am unable to act upon it. And the other way around, I could have strong opinion about certain norms and beliefs but with the effect of peer pressure I might not verbally agree but in fact just follow and act in response to their pressure by doing an action I don’t agree with.
The experiment is based upon infusion of a naïve subject in two contexts; one where he has to make choice independently using electric shocks against another person in context were he has the authority to do so even to a extreme level of shocks and another where he is part of team but also with powerful decision about the level of shocks as part of an justified experiment to supposedly measure memory level in response to punishment.
I believe the experiment uncovered number of interesting observation such as; when the person who was examined and electrified expressed physical pain, still number of naïve subject followed the peer pressure in pushing higher level of shocks and ignored or justified their action. But, another observation was that they found a direct relation between people with lower education level in yielding to group pressure than those of higher education level such as college graduates. This fact especially made me wonder why? Why higher educated people didn’t yield easier? Is it the fact that in their college educated they started realizing to question facts and orders? If we follow this assumption would we still include subjects with college education but served in the military. Who I believe might have yield in similar level to less educated individuals since they has been trained to follow order and not analysis them. Starting from the first move they teach in the army of how you stand, shout, and train all synchronizing in context of following orders without analyzing.
Moreover, what if the same experiment was developed now but let’s assume in developing country in Asia or the middle east, where college education have been higher but the quality is declining following a pattern of learning without thinking or questioning. Would the answer be the same? Would they still be on higher level of not automatically surrendering to peer pressure?
Kindly watch this very interesting talk about peer pressure especially in violent conditions. http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html
Here is a replication of Milgram experiment with emphasis on authority and the results are more shocking
RispondiEliminahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7YFtiE5EA
A. K. Goldsworthy, The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle 1997
RispondiEliminaThe present paper, written by A.K. Goldsworthy, tries to identify how the falanx (a rectangular mass military formation of the ancient times) was performing in the battlefield and how the result of the battle was totally dependent on the different behaviors of the front and the rear parts of it.
As the main idea of the falanx was othismus, meaning that the rear was shoving the front part of the formation towards the battle the front part was, in broad terms, absorbing the power of the rear and was sending it through the spears or swords to the opponents. However, according to Goldsworthy, this could not be feasible given that when the rear was shoving against the front, the hoplites (soldiers) standing in front could not be able to use their weapons while contacting the opponents. On the top of it, the role of the very rear of the falanx was even crucial, even if it appears that they were not actively participating in the battle. Goldsworthy through his passage states that this part of the falanx was somehow passive, since it had no real contact with the opponent, but it had an uneven impact to the battle because of the moral support provided to the front line of the formation. Therefore, the success of the falanx was based on the active role of the front lines and the passive but encouraging attitude of the rear. That's why the most competent soldiers were put in front and the rear of the falanx in order to make sure that not from the middle would run away.
Milgram, Stanley (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371–8
RispondiEliminaThis article by Stanley Milgram describes one of my favorite experiments in the field of social psychology. During the first year at university I first read about this experiment and it fascinated me that in such a liberal and developed country as the USA the people appeared to be so willing to comply to authority even though they knew they were hurting someone (physically and directly). Even though this was achieved by a very high level of detail in the setup of the experiment, it was quite extraordinary for me to read the results.
I would like to address how up to date the conclusions of this research are or are not. In my opinion the results could be quite different if such an experiment would have been conducted nowadays. Also the cultural component plays a large role here, in a hierarchical society the subjects would be more inclined to follow the instructions whereas in a more equal society the subjects will question the tasks that they are given and potentially challenge the experimenter. In order to investigate this I searched online and found an article from J.M. Burger from 2009 with the title Replicating Milgram. In this replication (conducted in 2006), seventy adults participated in a replication of Milgram's fifth experiment, up to the point at which they first heard the learners' verbal protest (150 volts). Because 79% of Milgram's participants who went past this point continued to the end of the shock generator's range. Obedience rates in the 2006 replication were only slightly lower than those Milgram found 45 years earlier. There is one problem with this replications, which is underlined in the following passage: I cannot say with absolute certainty that the present participants would have continued to the end of the shock generator's range at a rate similar to Milgram's participants. Only a full replication of Milgram's procedure can provide such an unequivocal conclusion. However, numerous studies have demonstrated the effect of incrementally larger request. That research supports the assumption that most of the participants who continued past the 150-volt point would likely have continued to the 450-volt switch. Consistency needs and self-perception processes make it unlikely that many participants would have suddenly changed their behavior when progressing through each small step.
Social Influence: Thoughts on Studies of Independence and Conformity:
RispondiEliminaA Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority by Solomon E. Asch
Social influence is an interesting topic for me since this is a helpful topic in the arena of social movements. I am a community development worker in the Philippines and advocacies like promoting more sustainable livelihoods, more power to poor farmers and fisher folks, and more disaster-resilient communities need the application of social influence theories.
This particular research by Asch is interesting because it provides empirical evidence on how a unanimous wrong group can influence an individual. This study can give an understanding of complex social situations. For instance, how we get influenced by the actions, culture and judgments by the group we belong in, even if we do not agree with their actions, culture and judgments.
According to Asch, individuals/minority can either cooperate or resist the judgment of the majority. He says that many psychological claims consider conformity as the fundamental social-psychological process when a minority is faced with a majority. The principle of reward and punishment comes support this view. When we are in from of a majority with opposite views, we evade “punishment” or bad impression or ridicule so we conform.
But Asch says that social influence is not just about submission to social pressure. There is also the striving for independence. I was reminded of my friend. He used to join a church and also joined an activist group, an advocacy organizations for peasants. He is critical. He does not accept all norms and is able to question even the traditions and principles of the organizations he joined. As a result, he is not dogmatic, he is less judgemental of others, and he is able to innovate new practices for the organizations he went to.
The experiment of Asch tells of an experimental group (where a majority of the members will publicly tell their wrong judgements before one critical subject) and a control group where all participants just write down their judgements so majority-minority is not made public). In the result, in the control group, almost all critical subjects gave error-free answers to the stimuli. But in the experimental group, only ¼ of the critical subject gave no errors. Other critical subjects gave wrong answers during the experiment.
But again, submission to peer pressure is not all there is in social influence. People also strive to deviate from the prevailing judgements/perspectives.
Now, I also became interested in: not really how to strive to be independent among a “wrong” majority but how to influence the majority to negotiate and believe in the minority’s judgement. This is particularly interesting because advocates should ponder on this (for example, one community development worker initiating changes in the perspectives of powerless people and attempt transformations to make them more engaged.)
The social influence in the identity of the individual: The Mara´s phenomenon
RispondiEliminaAbout this unit, my question is around the matter of the identity for the individual. Asch and Milgram show an important analysis: the pressure of the group is accepted for everyone, with the only purpose of belongs into a group.
Indeed, this pressure is so important, that these authors deepen in the change of the internal structure (values /principles / the wrong-rigth idea) learned for everybody, only with the promise of the shape to a specific group. This idea is the center of the theory of conformism of Asch, that explain the influence of the groups into the internal structure of priorities for every member of the structure. If the start point is the identity is the set of internal thoughts (symbols, beliefs, traditions), we can say that the identity is a social construction that born in the pressure of the group, and this identity is most likely variable and dynamic and not static an unique like is the common conception.
In this sense, Milgram take this theory one step to ahead, with the analysis of the obedience, for research the reaction of the ordinary people with the imposition of wrong values (1) or behaviors for an authority figure or a simple pair of the group that the person pertain. The goal of Milgram was analyze the level of the decision in the members of the military forces, like the Nazy army.
For my opinion, the Milgram experiment (and all this sociological movement of the Social psychologist) is useful for understand the reasons for why a fellow decides just go against the meta-social structure and integrate illegal and unethical groups. My example is a new transnational phenomenon of the criminality: The existence of Gangs called Maras, a group formed in the majority for orfans and survivors of the civil war in the Centro America region (Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua) that simply lost all bound with a family, culture, social or/and religious identity and found in the gang, the only connection with the sense of belong to a social connection.
For deep in the analyisis of this group, please refer to this links:
- The video that explains the roots of the Maras’s gangs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCXOSQ-i-EI
- The full documental by National Geographic about Maras:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFGvPnvhXUU
1. The wrong values understand not in a moral way, but like the opposite idea to the respect for the dignity and life to the other in a universal agreement of the mean of Human rights.