Blog Post #13

1.My thoughts on these studies are that some of them were pretty interesting. What I found interesting about Milgram's Obedience was that 2/3 of the participants shocked people to the worst degree possible. They at first estimated that only 1 in 1,000 people, the sadists, would go to that extreme of the most intense shock, so that was interesting. What I found interesting about the Stanford Prison Experiment was how the students got totally into their roles. Some of the prison students were were perfectly healthy before the experiment but became sick while doing the experiment and also became passive and zombie-like. Also, nice student boys became brutal prison guards. Milgram's Obedience shows that our Human Nature shows a lot of carelessness and conformity. The Stanford Prison Experiment shows that our Human Nature tries to adapt us to the role that we think we should play and that we can easily get carried away.
2. Social influences are everyday factors that make us act a certain way. One example of this is when a group full of people are voting on something, and almost every one's hand goes up, I am way more likely to vote for that thing, just because I don't want to look like the oddball.
Another example is when you are assigned a group for a project, and the group has to collectively make a decision what color to make the project. If everyone in my group wants to go with a certain color that I don't particularly like, I'd rather just agree with them than argue my case and lose time on getting the project done.
3.The most interesting thing I learned in this class was about how different cultures view things acceptable compared to other cultures that do not view it that way. I found it so interesting how in different cultures, men can greet one another by kissing each other on the cheek, but in America, most people would be appalled by that gesture. It is so interesting to me how everyone thinks that their culture is so normal, but then most people pick apart other people's culture, labeling things as "weird" or "not normal." I guess I just find it entertaining!