My Two Cents

According to wikipedia.org: Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention. Now some of us will think that if we carry ourselves (identity) with us, how can we lose our self-awareness, well there are many ways, some examples are: Becoming a part of a large group, such as a mob or army. Becoming engrossed in an interesting task, such as a hobby. Meditation and other contemplative activities. Deindividuation is when a person loses his individual identity and gains the identity of the group. We have often noticed, when two groups argue or fight, it often looks like two people are fighting/arguing. Factors of deindividuation in a group are: Anonymity, so I can not be found out. Diffused responsibility, so I am not responsible for my actions. Group size, as a larger group increases the above two factors. Conformity  to a social norm When you are in a group...

According to Wikipedia: In the Abilene paradox, a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many or all of the individuals in the group. In simple words, Abilene paradox is when each member of a group is a against the popular choice of the group and mistakenly believe that opposing it will cause a problem. It is a major problem in a big organization as well as in real life. The term was introduced by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in his 1974 article "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement". It was named like this because one day he and his family were sitting outside playing and having fun. His father-in-law jokingly suggested taking a trip to Abilene which was 44 miles away for supper. They all agreed because everyone thought other person wanted to go. But it turns out that it was an awful trip and a waste of a perfect Sunday. So, whenever such situations occur he is always reminded of that trip to Abil...

Jump to search According to Wikipedia, Conformity is: Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires because it is often easier to follow the path others have made already, rather than creating a new one. In other words, Conformity is basically yielding to group or social pressure. Group pressure can be of many forms like bullying, teasing, criticism etc. Solomon Asch was one of the first scientist that worked on conformity and in turn influenced Miligram experiments . He is best known for his conformity experiments . His main finding was that peer pressure can change opinion and even perception.  Conformity, indicates agreement to the majority, which are brought by a desire to ‘fit in’ or to be liked (normative) or because of a...

Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure. It is assumed that without such an order the person would not have acted in this way. But this obedience can be harmful in some situations. The most famous example of this can be the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Do we believe that all of the people in Nazi Germany wanted to kill those six million European Jew? No, but they were bound and ordered by the authorities to do so. This obedience to authority figures is in our nature. This can happen to all of us.  In one of the famous experiment, the nurses were told by the doctor to give a certain medicine to the patients which the nurses didn't know about. Out of 22 nurses which participated 21 gave those medicines to the patients. Now let's talk about the Milgram experiment. It was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanl...

In our previous posts, we have learnt about some of the techniques in Social Psychology. Now in this post I want to tell you about some techniques that you can use in real life to influence people or to protect yourself from being influence by other people and make rash decisions. Some of the tips are: People more likely to help you when you ask them to imagine or predict doing something. Telling some stranger your name first can also be helpful when asking a favour. One can say “Hello, I am ___ and I was wondering whether you do me a favour.” Talking with people is more helpful that talking at people when asking for something/favour. Engaging people in dialogues rather than a monologue. Now I would like to tell you about the most commonly used persuasion techniques. These techniques are: 1.       Foot-in-the-door technique 2.       Door-in-the-face technique 3.       Low-ball technique N...

According to wikipedia.org, Persuasion is: Persuasion is an umbrella term of influence . Persuasion can attempt to influence a person's beliefs , attitudes , intentions , motivations , or behaviors . In other words, persuasion is a process aimed at changing a person's (or a group's) attitude or behaviour toward some event, idea, object, or another person(s). Knowing some of the persuasion techniques can be very helpful for a person as this techniques can help that person to excel in life (and/or his respective field like business, study, and even relationships). So let's begin by asking these three questions and then I will tell you about Robert Cialdini 's 6 principles of persuasion. So the questions are: Should one use counter-arguments while persuading? Should you take the central route (or peripheral route) to persuasion? Should you scare the receiver of the persuasion? Answering these questions, counter-arguments can be helpful at times w...

According to wikipedia.org, cognitive dissonance is: In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs , ideas , or values .  Let me give you an example of cognitive dissonance to explain it better to you. When people smoke they know its bad for them, yet they have a habit of smoking a cigarette. This is an example of cognitive dissonance. Their behaviour (smoking a cigarette) is inconsi stent with their beliefs (smoking is bad for health) which leads to contradictions. We are all powerfully motivated to maintain cognitive consistency, and it is this force that can sometimes result in us behaving irrationally, and sometimes even maladaptively. We can reduce this unpleasant feeling of discomfort/contradiction by using one of the following: Change our attitude/belief/behaviour (in our case, give up smoking)  Acquire new informati...