Sources
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-obedience-2795894
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/socialpsychology/section7/
http://motivatedmastery.com/why-we-rationalize-our-mistakes-foolish-beliefsand-how-to-pop-the-bubble-of-self-justification/
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326
https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/behavior/what-is-the-learned-helplessness-psychology-definition/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/socialpsychology/section7/
http://motivatedmastery.com/why-we-rationalize-our-mistakes-foolish-beliefsand-how-to-pop-the-bubble-of-self-justification/
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326
https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/behavior/what-is-the-learned-helplessness-psychology-definition/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html
Script
Why We Obey? - Groups (Part 2) | Sai-Cology (Ep.11)
Wake up sheeple! Beware of who you obey! Obedience is all about following orders of those higher up. To figure out why we obey and how to combat or make others obey, stay tuned on this week’s episode of Sai-Cology.
SAICOLOGY TITLE
Why We Obey?
We are more likely to obey when there are authority figures giving the directions-- and we will cover all that in the next episode, power. Today though, we’ll talk about the person doing the obeying. First a quick tip, if someone gives us fast paced instructions, we find it difficult to keep track of things or think much, so it can be used as an easy and quick technique to get people to obey.
We’re also more likely to obey if we don’t see examples of others disobeying as well as if we don’t see the consequences of what we are doing if those are negative. When there is someone of authority there, giving commands, people justify behavior by pushing responsibility for actions onto that authority figure (Loss of Personal Responsibility). One of the worst effects from this diffusion of responsibility is the Bystander Effect where we don’t act when in large group situations because we all think someone else will take care of it. Similarly in a large group if no one protests someones orders, we will blame the authority figure as well as the others, since they didn’t say anything either.
We also will obey easy commands easily, then feel compelled to obey increasingly difficult commands -- this is an example of the foot-in-the-door effect that we’ll discussed more in episode 14 (CARD: SAICOLOGY PLAYLIST, “More Episodes!”).
This is also an example of Self-Justification which is what we do to combat Cognitive Dissonance. One way to facilitate this is by breaking down a big task into smaller increments, we only have smaller decisions to make, making it easier. That way as a task increases we let ourselves obey by telling ourselves it’s not “that” different from previous tasks we completed. In general though, self-justification is a great example of our human ability to flee from reality. We hate taking responsibility for negative or stupid actions. So, if someone else is in charge, we can easily justify what they tell us and obey, or conversely if you want someone to obey, you need to prime their mind to justify what they are doing to ease them into compliance.
Another reason people obey is Learned Helplessness. This is when people feel they have no control they begin to accept their conditions and obey. This can create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, (TXT: See Ep. 16) as well where we become what others want or expect from us because we give up on ourselves. Learned Helplessness is about our responses to our failures, and plays a big role stress and depression as well. Those who feel helpless most likely have low self-efficacy, which is in tune with your style of Attribution (CARD: Attribution Styles). One can have an internal attribution where we blame or credit ourselves or an external attribution where they blame others or the task they were doing for being designed that way. You can also have a stable or unstable attribution which describes if the way you attribute things vary situation by situation or stays the same no matter what the circumstance. Finally, you can have a local or global attribution which is whether you think the reason is specific to that task or for all tasks related-- such as if you fail a math test, are you just plain stupid, or are you just not good at math? Those prone to Learned Helplessness usually have a internal, stable and global attribution style.
The final reason I’m going to cover about why people obey is Conditioning. Again, because humans love familiarity and routine, they can be easily exploited through conditioning. I’m sure many of you have heard of Pavlov and his experiments with dogs, so I won’t cover that in depth (TXT: If you haven’t, check out the links below), but conditioning on a human level is similar.
Conditioning is how we develop responses to stimuli that aren’t first nature-- we learn them from past experience and essentially learning that certain actions have correlated results. So, if we are trained to act in a certain way or to do a certain routine, we will continue to react in the same ways. Through this training and conditioning, we can learn or be taught to obey.
Today, we talked about obedience. Next week we will talk power.
Before you go, here’s some instructions for you to obey. First, scroll down and hit that like, subscribe and bell button. Then comment down below any thoughts, questions or experiences you have. See you next time, and remember, to behave yourself!
Wake up sheeple! Beware of who you obey! Obedience is all about following orders of those higher up. To figure out why we obey and how to combat or make others obey, stay tuned on this week’s episode of Sai-Cology.
SAICOLOGY TITLE
Why We Obey?
We are more likely to obey when there are authority figures giving the directions-- and we will cover all that in the next episode, power. Today though, we’ll talk about the person doing the obeying. First a quick tip, if someone gives us fast paced instructions, we find it difficult to keep track of things or think much, so it can be used as an easy and quick technique to get people to obey.
We’re also more likely to obey if we don’t see examples of others disobeying as well as if we don’t see the consequences of what we are doing if those are negative. When there is someone of authority there, giving commands, people justify behavior by pushing responsibility for actions onto that authority figure (Loss of Personal Responsibility). One of the worst effects from this diffusion of responsibility is the Bystander Effect where we don’t act when in large group situations because we all think someone else will take care of it. Similarly in a large group if no one protests someones orders, we will blame the authority figure as well as the others, since they didn’t say anything either.
We also will obey easy commands easily, then feel compelled to obey increasingly difficult commands -- this is an example of the foot-in-the-door effect that we’ll discussed more in episode 14 (CARD: SAICOLOGY PLAYLIST, “More Episodes!”).
This is also an example of Self-Justification which is what we do to combat Cognitive Dissonance. One way to facilitate this is by breaking down a big task into smaller increments, we only have smaller decisions to make, making it easier. That way as a task increases we let ourselves obey by telling ourselves it’s not “that” different from previous tasks we completed. In general though, self-justification is a great example of our human ability to flee from reality. We hate taking responsibility for negative or stupid actions. So, if someone else is in charge, we can easily justify what they tell us and obey, or conversely if you want someone to obey, you need to prime their mind to justify what they are doing to ease them into compliance.
Another reason people obey is Learned Helplessness. This is when people feel they have no control they begin to accept their conditions and obey. This can create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, (TXT: See Ep. 16) as well where we become what others want or expect from us because we give up on ourselves. Learned Helplessness is about our responses to our failures, and plays a big role stress and depression as well. Those who feel helpless most likely have low self-efficacy, which is in tune with your style of Attribution (CARD: Attribution Styles). One can have an internal attribution where we blame or credit ourselves or an external attribution where they blame others or the task they were doing for being designed that way. You can also have a stable or unstable attribution which describes if the way you attribute things vary situation by situation or stays the same no matter what the circumstance. Finally, you can have a local or global attribution which is whether you think the reason is specific to that task or for all tasks related-- such as if you fail a math test, are you just plain stupid, or are you just not good at math? Those prone to Learned Helplessness usually have a internal, stable and global attribution style.
The final reason I’m going to cover about why people obey is Conditioning. Again, because humans love familiarity and routine, they can be easily exploited through conditioning. I’m sure many of you have heard of Pavlov and his experiments with dogs, so I won’t cover that in depth (TXT: If you haven’t, check out the links below), but conditioning on a human level is similar.
Conditioning is how we develop responses to stimuli that aren’t first nature-- we learn them from past experience and essentially learning that certain actions have correlated results. So, if we are trained to act in a certain way or to do a certain routine, we will continue to react in the same ways. Through this training and conditioning, we can learn or be taught to obey.
Today, we talked about obedience. Next week we will talk power.
Before you go, here’s some instructions for you to obey. First, scroll down and hit that like, subscribe and bell button. Then comment down below any thoughts, questions or experiences you have. See you next time, and remember, to behave yourself!