Stanley Milgram Social Influence

It is possible to recognize and measure the individual differences in emotions as well as behaviour in early human ontogeny by the first few months of life. Therefore, personality traits can be defined as the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, as well as behaviours that differentiate individuals from others. Social influence, on the other hand, refers to the shifts in a person’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours that may result from interaction with another individual or group. According to many social service professionals and counselors, the power of personality traits is often superior as compared to the power of social influence. However, a social psychologist, Stanley Milgram asserts that social influence sometimes

Moreover, Milgram established that every single one out of the 110 experts on human behaviour, including psychiatrists, predicted that no one could reach the 450-volt level. Milgram conducted many several variations on his basic experiment and determined two main ways that obedience to the authority could be reduced. Firstly, through increasing the obviousness of the learners suffering and to reduce the authority or influence of the experimenter. According to Eysenck (2004), the effect of the first factor was analyzed by comparing obedience in four situations, differing in the extent to which the learner was made aware of the suffering that he or she was made to

Notably, most of the participants who utilized the maximum electric shock accepted but with much reluctance. Moreover, the participants demonstrated clear signs of stress and internal conflict. Notably, it has been contended that the levels of obedience may be reduced in real life situations when groups of people challenge the authority. Ultimately, the experiment by Milgram demonstrated that conformity, as well as obedience, are influenced by many factors and that they are more prevalent than might be imagined. According to Lunt (2009), as the experiment unfolds, it is evident that the participants are involved in a complex situation that may result to the learner being harmed. Consequently a personal value, that of respecting and not harming others comes into play. Therefore, the experiment in general places the participant in a dilemma. If they obey the authority figure, they go against the social norms that sanction is doing no harm to others. On the other hand, if they decline to harm the other person in the experiment then they would be acting against the social norms where good citizens defer to legitimate authority. Stanley Milgram acknowledges that the experiment creates an unusual social situation, an intensification as well as a distillation of everyday occurrence of the