Social influence concepts: conformity, compliance and obedience
Social influence concepts: conformity, compliance and obedience
The purpose of this analytical research paper is to examine conformity, compliance and obedience and demonstrate how they apply to real world events. You will examine the benefits of social influence as well as, show how social influence can lead to disastrous effects. You will show how results from social psychology experiments can be comparative to behaviors in real world tragedies.
Instructions:
● Please review the video “The Psychology of Evil” by Philip Zimbardo from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg. This video has closed captioning as well as a transcript you can read. To read the transcript, see below the video, there is an icon that looks like a page of paper next to “add in.” Click on that icon and to pull up a transcript. Zimbardo also was the creator of the Stanford prison experiment, he played the “warden” in the experiment. You will be analyzing this experiment as well, so keep that in mind as you view the video.
● Compare and contrast the differences in the social influence concepts: conformity, compliance and obedience and give some examples to demonstrate how these concepts are applied in our personal lives and the workplace (Please don’t use examples from the textbook).
● Discuss the benefits of people conforming, complying and obeying and discuss why social influence is important for a society and beneficial for our own success in life.
● Identify the consequences of conformity, compliance and obedience by analyzing the Milgram’s experiment and the Stanford prison experiment which are both associated with social influence. You will find a list of articles on both the Milgram’s and Stanford prison experiments below. Explain how these two experiments illustrate how social influence can lead to violent behaviors. In addition, use the required “The psychology of evil” video to discuss how the Milgram’s and Stanford prison experiments have helped social psychologists understand how conformity, compliance and obedience can lead to catastrophic events. Discuss your reaction to the video and explain Zimbardo’s explanation from the video of how obedience, compliance and conformity can lead to real world aggressive acts.
● Please apply these concepts to a real world tragedy. There is a list of real world events below that you can choose from to discuss. Please choose one real world event that justifies how social influence can lead to aggressive, abusive, and/or destructive behaviors and evaluate how these concepts play a major role in the real event you chose. Use two sources to support your argument how these social influence concepts played a role in the real world event.
Individual 5-Page Paper
● Choose one or more theories of aggression and argue how it may explain why people use violence in the real world event you chose.
● Conclude your paper by predicting future calamities and aggressive acts that can occur when people blindly obey and how prosocial behaviors can be used to help reduce negative occurrences of compliance and obedience. Use concepts from your textbook to discuss prosocial behaviors and how they may counteract aggressive future tragedies.
● Please use at least five educational sources. At least two should be from scholarly journal articles.