Summary: Rape At Mcdonalds

Watching the “Rape at McDonalds” video was very disturbing. It was shocking to see how all the participants, except for the maintenance man, complied with the bizarre demands of the supposed police, especially Donna Jean Summers. As a manager, she should have known the policies of the company, as a reasonable person, she should had handled the situation in a different way. However, there are some psychological explanations for her behaviors. The law says that we must obey the authority; she believed that she was doing the right thing by following the others given by “the cop” even if the commands were very odd. “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” (Saul McLeod, par.3). Most of us will comply the order given by the authority because if we do not, it may cause us problems, this is what Donna did. Her behavior was affected by the influence of the supposed cop. Moreover, she showed conformity which is “a change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined pressure”, (Myers & Winter, 2012). She did not confront the man order’s, she accepted everything very easily.

I think that she should have

On the other hand, “Informational influence is conformity under acceptance of evidence about reality which has been provided by others” (Myers, 2009). I believe that in this case both normative and informative influence are present. Normative because I think she tried to shine, to have her moment of fame, to be the hero, and look in front of others “as the great manager who helped the police arrest a thief”. In contrast, informative influence can be seen in the way she accepted the story that the person over the phone was telling her. She believed on it, forgetting to use her common sense just because a “cop” told her