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Have you ever blamed your actions on someone else? If you did, do you remember why or how you justified your actions? It is a possibility that you blamed the person who told you to do it. The person situationally influenced you and you put the responsibility for your actions on them. What are situational influences?What are types of situational influence?What is…
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenHave you ever blamed your actions on someone else? If you did, do you remember why or how you justified your actions?
It is a possibility that you blamed the person who told you to do it. The person situationally influenced you and you put the responsibility for your actions on them.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were around people you did not know? You might have felt uncomfortable and did not feel like you could be yourself. However, if you were in a group of friends, you would have no problem showing your true personality. In this instance, the situation that you were in influenced your behaviour.
In psychology, situational influences are external factors that impact our behaviours and obedience.
Situational influences can include a wide range of factors – the number of people, who the people are, authority levels, proximity, and pressure. Even if you know what you are doing is wrong, a situational influence might be so strong that you behave incorrectly.
Another form of influence is dispositional influence. Dispositional influences are internal influences, such as personality, morals, mood, and genes, that impact someone’s behaviour. Dispositional influences can happen anywhere since they are internal, even though situational and dispositional influences are impactful in changing someone’s behaviour.
Before we continue learning about situational influences, let’s understand their link to obedience.
Obedience is when someone changes their behaviour due to a request from an authority figure.
Obedience is similar to compliance since they both result in a behavioural change due to someone asking them to. However, for the influence to be considered obedience, the ask has to be coming from an authority figure. In compliance, the request is coming from a friend or peer. The authority figure's status greatly impacts the decision of the person to obey the request.
Is it harder for you to say no to your parents than your sibling? To your teacher than your classmates? To your coach than your teammates? Your parents, teachers, and coaches all have social authority over you, resulting in your compliance becoming obedience.
Situational influences encourage obedience, making it harder for someone to say no.
Situational influence can be broken down into three main categories – proximity, the status of authority, and personal responsibility.
Proximity refers to how close the authority figure is to you when they are asking you to do something. As you might assume, when the person is closer to you, you will more likely obey than if they are further away (or not even physically near you). That makes sense, right?
Stanley Milgram’s famous shock experiment studied proximity. In the experiment, the researcher told the participants that they were delivering shocks to another person when the person answered a question incorrectly (the shocks were fake). The shocks increased in voltage, and when the participant would express a desire to end the experiment, the researcher would verbally prod them to continue. One of Milgram’s variations changed the researcher's location from in the room with the participant to in a separate room. Milgram found that in this variation, the participants who administered the highest voltage decreased from 65% to 40%.
Proximity matters even in a less stressful situation. If your parent asks you to do a chore in person, you will probably do it; however, if they ask you to do it over text, there is less of a chance that the chore will actually be completed.
The status of the authority refers to how authoritative you view the person. How much power do you perceive them to have?
The more authority (or higher status of authority) the person has, the more likely you are to obey their request.
Fig. 1. Would a teacher or head teacher have more influence over you? Pixabay.com.
While in school, you might have misbehaved in your class. If your primary teacher could not successfully discipline you and get you to listen, they could have sent you to the head teacher’s office. In this case, the authority status of the head teacher is higher than your regular teacher. When sending you to the head teacher’s office, your teacher was hoping that the higher authority would be able to make you obey and stop misbehaving.
Do you and your friends view people’s status of authority similarly? If you and your friend are in the same class in school and your teacher asked you both to do something, you would respond similarly since you both view the teacher at the same level of authority. On the other hand, what if your friend is on a sports team and you are not? If his coach told him to run a mile he would do it, but what if his coach told that to you? You do not compete for this coach, therefore, do not view her in the same authoritative way as your friend. If she told you to run a mile you probably would say no.
How responsible are you for your actions? While this theoretical question can lead to many answers, it is also asked about situational influences and obedience.
If you are asked to do something by an authority figure and obey, there is a lower personal responsibility for your actions. You were told to do something and you did it. If someone asked you why you behaved like that, you would easily tell them that an authority figure told you to do so. On the other hand, if you know your actions will be directly reflected upon you and your character (you will have a higher personal responsibility), you will be less likely to obey.
This concept is what inspired Milgram to create his shock experiment. He saw the atrocities the Nazis and Germans committed during World War II and wondered if the people carried out these tasks because they were truly evil or because of following orders. When the Germans were putting people into concentration camps and gas chambers, they were following orders of people with more authority. The obedience of the Germans allowed them to not take personal responsibility for their actions, justifying their behaviours in their minds.
Before we discuss influences on ethical behaviour, let’s first understand what it is.
When someone is acting ethically, what are they doing? They are probably making good decisions, keeping other people in mind, and choosing based on a good set of morals. The choice to behave ethically can come from within, but there are also times when the situation that you are in can lead you to behave more ethically.
Chances are, you know people who will always behave ethically and some who rarely will. These differences are most likely due to individual influences. Individual influences on ethical behaviour are crucial – they are responsible for the moral code that each person follows. A person's goals, values, morals, education, personality, and temperament are all individual influences that can impact their behaviour.
Situational influences are just as important for ethical behaviour. While someone might have the best moral compass, if they are in a situation where they are pressured or told to act otherwise, they might cave and act against their ethics. Can you think of a situation where you might not act ethically because of where you are or who you are with? Being in an unfamiliar group or environment can negatively influence your ethical behaviour.
But if you usually behave unethically, would being in an unfamiliar group or environment cause you to behave ethically?
The situational influence model is a guide for people to comprehend how situational influences can impact their lives (and how they can be responsible for situationally influencing others). There are three steps to the situational influence model.
Energy refers to how much influence you can have in a situation. Without using your energy, you cannot influence a situation as much as you could otherwise.
Within energy, there are three options for use:
Push energy: This happens when you are trying to influence someone to do what you want. It is the most stereotypical influence. It has to be used carefully so people do not feel forced.
Pull energy: In pull energy, you are still trying to get someone to do what you want, but you are achieving it differently. Here, you understand where the person is coming from to help shape their behaviours rather than forcing your desires upon them.
Moving away energy: Sometimes, you make the biggest statement by not doing anything at all. This is moving away energy. You not doing anything and removing yourself influences others’ behaviours.
Style is the environment that is created within each type of energy. It can also mean the types of influences that happen at each energy.
In push energy, the two styles are persuading and asserting. Persuading uses techniques like reasoning and proposing ideas to change someone’s behaviour, while asserting relies on stating needs and incentives.
In pull energy, the two styles are bridging and attracting. Bridging is when you try to understand where someone is coming from to change their behaviour without changing your behaviour. Attracting focuses more on working together – you are more personally invested.
In moving away, the two styles are disengaging and avoiding. When disengaging you could take a temporary break or postpone plans or behaviours. While avoiding can lead to negative consequences, it is successful in moving away. Avoiding means backing down from commitments and situations.
In the situational influence model, behaviour is more of a general term. It means what behaviour usually means – how people act and carry themselves in different situations. Those more adept with their behaviours are more likely to influence others successfully.
Fig. 2. Have you used any of the aspects of the situational influence model on your friends? Pixabay.com.
Situational influences can influence more than someone's behaviour. A person's situation can influence their personality – how someone acts and what they say can vary depending on the situation.
Can this be reversed – can personality influence a situation? It can. Personality can influence what types of situations someone gets in.
Below are examples of situational influence on personality.
You get put into a group project with the people in your class who never do any work. Your personality might change to become more stressed and less talkative when you realise you have to do the project alone.
Your parents went through a bad divorce when you were a kid. This turmoil when you were younger has shaped you to become more impulsive and emotional.
The presence of an authority figure can change someone's personality from silly and extroverted to reserved and introverted.
It’s down to the last five minutes of your football game and the score is tied. Your personality would be different than if your team were up by two goals.
If you are talking with your friend on the phone, would you be more or less comfortable than if you are talking with them in person? The presence of the phone can influence how relaxed the conversation is.
The variation studies on Milgram's original obedience experiment found that factors such as proximity of the authority figure, proximity of the learner, uniform of the authority figure, location of the study, and presence of other disobedient participants contributed to situational influence.
Situational influences in psychology, specifically in social psychology, are the impact of environmental factors on behavior.
Examples of situational factors in obedience studies include the proximity of the authority figure, the uniform of the authority figure, location of the study and presence of other disobedient participants.
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