Question

Others can and have had powerful influences on our thoughts and behavior. Conformity is defined in the text as …”adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard”. History demonstrates that people are capable of committing egregious acts against others. Describe Milgrim’s famous study of How powerful an influence do you think others are on behavior? What sorts of behavior so you think people are more likely to engage in if others in their ”group” are “doing it”? Can you recall an instance where you were influenced by others to think or act in ways you won’t have otherwise? I

Answer 1

Milgrim measured the willingness of study participants, from diverse occupations and education levels to obey an authority figure's instructions. These instructions were conflicting to their personal beliefs. The experiment showed that a very high number of people followed the instructions of the authority figure.

This shows the theory of conformism, that is a subject who lacks ability and expertise to make decisions rely on the larger group or the hierarchy for decision making especially in cases of crisis.

Moreover, Milgram said that the essence of obedience depends upon the view that a person considers themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes and they do not see themselves directly responsible for their actions. This view makes people obey others and it therefore influences their behaviour.

When others in the group are doing it, people tend to follow or obey that behaviour blindly even if it seems wrong to them personally. This sometimes also leads to belief perserverance that is a phenomenon wherein a person continues to maintain certain beliefs despite new contradicting information.

Many classroom behaviour that a student displays such as bullying, talking to others only if they fit in a certain 'category', dressing up in a certain way, etc are influenced by others in the classroom, especially the more dominating or famous ones. Sometimes certain behaviours are also due to an influence from the authority figure, such as following a particular format while writing an assignment could be solely because of the teacher's instructions and not because the student actually wanted to present the work in such a manner.