¶ … behavior?
Prejudice and social psychology
Gender-based stereotypes and influence of society
Cultural impact of host cultures
The contribution of Stanley Milgram has been significant in the field of social psychology. Milgram conducted experiments of human behavior in a laboratory setting and concluded that obedience to authority usually disregards moral or legal normative standards. An individual's behavior is thus shaped by the environment, people around, and his figure of authority. "Because humans are social animals, human behavior is strongly influenced by behavior of other humans; this influence is often very direct"(Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003; Pg. 18). The current paper investigates as to what extent the human behavior is influenced by others. The paper adopts an investigative approach and cites peer reviewed articles to substantiate the discussion. Social identity theory is also an important theoretical explanation that explains how and why an individual voluntarily gets influenced from socially constructed relationships.
Introduction
Stanley Milgram remains one of the early researchers who investigated the risks of obedience in a social setting and the role that authority plays in one's decision making. Social settings and situational factors are more responsible for an individual's behavior as opposed to personal factors, social psychology theory explains. People witnessed brutal causalities being caused in World War II and famous proof in which World War II criminal Adolph Eichmannaffirmed that he was only fulfilling the his commander's instructions. Such positions provoked the interest of Milgram to conduct experiments regarding the role of influence from an authority figure in an individual's decision making. Having conducted his controversial experiments on 40 men, Milgram concluded that 65% of the participants bowed to authority for delivering 'electric shocks' to their subjects, despite orders being morally incorrect (Blass, 2009) .
With Milgram's position regarding role of authority figure in an individual's decision making as background to this discussion, present study will investigate that'How do others influence our behavior-Position will be taken according to leading social psychology theories. Results reported by research of psychologists will be presented to discover the factors of our behavior in context of influence that authority and social environment factors exerts on individuals.
How others shape our behavior?
"Because humans are social animals, human behavior is strongly influenced by behavior of other humans; this influence is often very direct"(Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003; Pg. 18). Situational norms are said to have significant impact on an individuals' behavior. These norms are communicated to individual in a group through peer interaction, observation, and direction that flow in from the figures of authority. Milgram (1973) observed that it is an essential element of communal living that chain of authority is established and some figure vested with authority to take and implement decision is established. The author also presents the example of Plato in 'Antigone' arguing the role of respect and obedience in face of opposition from one's own conscience. When human beings find themselves in a situation where they have to obey irrational and immoral commands, compliance with the directives is the usual outcome.The three major findings of the study conducted by Milgram retreated that we tend to abide by the orders and our behavior is significantly shaped when figure of authority is present physically around us.
Another finding was that conflicting authority significantly paralyzes official authority.Milgrams also observed that although his experiment was conducted in a laboratory setting and that no real punishments and incentives were used to enforce and restrict the behavior of participants, it is safe to assume that in social settings where authority figure has punishments and incentives at his discretion, the influence of authority on behavior of an individual may be even higher. Had Milgram used punishments and rewards in the experiment, results of compliance by participants could have been much higher.
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