1) I could compare myself to the studies that were performed. I often give in to others views, called conformity. The majority of people swaying one way tend to persuade the minority that their view is wrong. The minority might not even be wrong, the group members just feel as though they are wrong because more people are opposing them. The Milgram's Obedience test was repulsive. I can't believe that one human being could treat another human being like crap just for psychological studies. People were put in life threatening situations just for the purpose of tests, and that is very wrong. The Stanford Prison Experiment was also shocking to me. It made humans treat their peers like animals. The experiment reminded me alot of Hiter. The Holocaust was the same general idea, but not an experiment. The experiment designer was a sick person. If I was inducted into an experiment of that sort, I would probably kill someone after I found out it was just all for fun. Humans sway with the majority. Opinion does not have an effect when a large group is surveyed publically. People are scared or even embarrased to share their views. I think human nature is relatively irrelevant. People do not get things accomplished when the majority is just a big lie. Statistics can be proven wrong when people find out that "human nature" was just taking over.
2) A social influence can be seen in conformity, compliance, and group behavior. The book has examples of normative and informational social influences. Normative social influences are a result of not wanting to be disapproved or to gain approval. An example would be music. My mother is a great flute player and singer. I play flute and I always try to make her proud. I want her approval and I want her to be happy with me. She also sings and I try to gain her approval in that also. Informational includes the willingness to accept other peoples opinions. When you are the president of National Honor Society, you need to take other opinions into consideration. If you are all for yourself, nobody will follow you or listen to you. In order to be successful, you need to listen to others. I was influenced by people when gossip occurs. When I am around people that are gossiping, I join in and gossip with them , even though I know it is wrong.
3) The most interesting thing I learned in this class is about memory. People can block out memories by use of denial. Other things that can occur are distorted memories. For example, if a girl got raped, she will try to block the memory out of her mind forever. It is of no use to her. All it does is bring back agony and painful memories.
Thanks for teaching me all the interesting stuff this semester! :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have to agree that one of the most interesting things that i learned in this class was also memory. It amazes me that we are able to block certain parts of our memory out and we can remember others so perfectly. We can also remeber stuff that never happended. we make a story up inour head and we are able ot remember it perfecly even though it never happened. this was very interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that the obedience and prison experiments were absolutely repulsive! I can't believe that anyone would conduct such experiments that could cause so much physical and mental harm to participants. If I were a part of these experiments, I ,too, would be extremely angry once I found out it was all for an experiment. I thought memory was a very interesting topic we learned about (not my most interesting). I especially liked learning about how people can block memories out of their minds and never remember them again, like they never even happened.
ReplyDelete