Introduction
Every day we make choices. We choose to go out, stay in, where to work, what to eat. We choose our friends our tastes, our likes and dislikes – everything is a choice. We believe, perhaps naively, that we have some control, a conscious volition over our actions, but to what degree are the decisions we make influenced by others?
We do not, after all, choose our family, the culture in which we’re raised or the religion we may be brought up in. These things are beyond our capacity to control; they are our circumstances, our setting.
Why do we make the choices that we make? So many people take so much for granted. Few have bothered to question the origins of their motivation, again, believing it to be the result of conscious volition.
The difficulty arises when we realize just how easily we may be influenced by others. Edward Bernays, the father of public relations and nephew of Sigmund Freud, wrote:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
“We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Everything around us influences us. Bernays suggested that the wilful manipulation of the public is necessary for the very existence of society today. It may seem comical, but even the idea of the bacon and egg breakfast was given to the public by Bernays.
Knowing this, how can anyone be sure that their decisions are their own? The answer is – nobody can. Humans are the most studied species on the planet, and we are the most understood. Anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics – all these fields come together to form a model for the human mind and how we can be controlled. Unless and until we learn what influences us we will be at the whim of any person with a greater understanding of human motivation.
My reason for writing this, the first of what I hope is many small newsletters, is to inform people and to raise awareness about those things which affect us every day without our knowledge. In many cases just knowing some of these things has an inoculating effect. Ignorance and apathy are the enemies of reason, we must learn to think for ourselves and see the invisible forces, within and without ourselves, which seek to control us.
Apathy at Work
In 1964 in New York City a resident by the name of Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in a busy downtown apartment block. The murder took over an hour with Kitty screaming for help the whole time. It was revealed later that at least 38 of the apartment’s residents heard the attack but not one of them called the police much less intervened directly.
When residents were questioned later about why they had not called police they answered simply that they believed someone else would do it. This is not only a result of general apathy but also the work of what psychologists call “Diffusion of Social Impact,” “Diffusion of Responsibility” or “Social Proof.” Applied on a mass scale the effects of this are often devastating. As seen in the Genovese murder, when responsibility to act is distributed among many people the result is often inaction.
When faced with an emergency members of a group are less likely to act as individuals because they often believe that others in their group have stepped in to help or will step in to help. We see this in cases of motor vehicle accidents as well. A friend once told me that he was driving in a line of traffic out of town when the vehicle in front of him lost control and rolled over in the ditch. When I asked him if he stopped he told me that he didn’t, saying in so many words that somebody else would help and further justifying himself by saying that the accident didn’t look that bad anyway. As seen in the Genovese murder when responsibility to act is distributed among many people the result is often inaction.
Applied on a mass scale the effects of this are often devastating.
The results are very different, however, when responsibility points at one person rather than to a group. If all responsibility falls on one person they are most likely to act. Would my friend so easily have passed by the accident had he been the only person on the road, and would the Genovese murder have been allowed to take place had Kitty been able to appeal to a single person for help rather than crying out to the apathetic masses of her apartment block?
All the evidence shows that the larger the group, the less likely you are to receive help should you need it. Knowing this is a great asset. When others are in a time of need you should not rely on the group to reach out to help; additionally when you are in need you should not make mass appeals but rather appeal to a single individual and in so doing place all social responsibility on that individual. The benefit of knowing this is that social proof works both ways, when people see others responding with apathy and indifference they will be inclined to act the same way. However, when they see a single individual reaching out to help a person in need they are more likely to do the same as well.
Authority at Work
After World War II the surviving Nazis were put on trial in Nuremberg for the crimes they committed during the war. A variety of defense strategies emerged but the most common was to claim “I was only following orders.” This defense was so widely used during the trials that it became known as “The Nuremberg Defense.”
There was outcry around the world because of this defense; surely people would not submit to some despots orders on the grounds of being commanded alone.
In 1961, a social psychologist from Yale University by the name of Stanley Milgram performed an experiment that would set the question of authority and obedience to rest. Milgram hypothesized that people would give up their moral reservations and electrocute someone to the point of killing them if they were ordered to do so by an authority figure.
The design of the experiment had the subject come in and meet the experimenter. He would then meet the other subject who was really a confederate of the experimenter. They were assigned roles in an experiment that purports to test the effect of punishment on learning. The subject is always assigned the role of tester and the confederate the role of the learner. The pair is brought into the next room which is equipped with a chair bearing ties to hold the learner in place and electrodes which will shock the learner with increasing voltage with each successive wrong answer. The subject is taken to another room to assume his role as tester and is told he may terminate the experiment himself at any time should he feel the need to do so.
The experiment begins well but quickly deteriorates as the voltage increases and the learner does poorer and poorer. Increasing shocks are given – 30 volts, 45 volts, 60 volts. The learner complains and demands to be released but when the tester turns to the experimenter he is told, “Please continue, the experiment must go on.” Before the experiments were conducted Yale, students were asked what they thought the percentage of test subjects who would give a lethal shock would be. The consensus was around 2%.
In the original experiment 65% of participants worked their way up to deliver the final lethal shock of 450 volts despite any personal or moral opposition. By having an authority figure with the sole prompt “Please continue, the experiment must go on” most people will deliver lethal punishment to another human being.
If pressure can be brought to bear on any individual he or she will almost certainly bend to that pressure eventually. An authority figure tends to remove an individual’s inhibitions when taking orders due to a deferral of responsibility. What’s more is that those in positions of power tend to act in the most impulsive and destructive ways. Lord Acton wrote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Those of us who are aware must realize the great danger inherent in positions of authority and work to defend our minds from those who seek to control us.
Just Because...
Words often work on us in counterintuitive ways. Language is something most people take for granted. We are born into the language we will speak, how we will speak it, the ability we’re likely to have with it. It seems entirely improbable to most that language and the words we use have much more significance than they do at first sight.
Advertisers and propagandists are well aware of the power of words. McLuhan wrote “Words and the meaning of words predispose the child to think and act automatically in certain ways.” There’s even an entire field called sociolinguistics dedicated to the study and effects of language on society. The field of etymology is even used to track social and technological advancements down through history. Some words are of particular interest.
A Harvard social psychologist named Ellen Langer demonstrated the power of a single word in a simple experiment. It was formerly believed that people are more likely to comply with a simple request when given a reason. But Langer showed that simply adding the word “because” to a statement raised compliance by a considerable degree. The initial request was “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” This request received 60% compliance. When a reason was given, “because I’m in a rush,” compliance jumped to 94%. What’s interesting is that when the request is made, using the word because, but without any real reason compliance remains high (93%), “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?” In this case the word “because” acted as a trigger for automatic compliance even when no further reason was given.
A problem of consistency
When someone makes a commitment to another person it’s generally expected that the commitment should be fulfilled. When a person breaks a promise there is a tendency to think of the person as unreliable. The trouble is that people are often manipulated into having feelings of commitment and made to feel as though they should be acting with more consistency. Often this consistency involves only the best interest of the particular person who stands to gain from your commitment.
Perhaps the most well know examples of consistency manipulation are those employed by various salesmen. For example, in Morocco when shopping for a good Persian rug the salesman will begin by asking if you belong to a certain religion. No matter what you say the salesman will react with great excitement declaring that he too is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Atheist (insert your religion here). After the excitement subsides he will take you to the back and show you his “good rugs” (carpets that the general public aren’t privy to). He will take out carpets in pairs and ask which you prefer rather than if you like the carpets, this is known as “forced choice psychology.” Any carpet you prefer is added to the pile then negotiation over price begins. Mark up on these items is often, if not always, ten times above their actual value. The salesman will tell you the price, you will make your offer, he struggles greatly with this since you are the same religion as he is and laments that he can’t sell the carpets to you at the price you’ve asked but since you are such good friends he will give them to you for X price.
We can observe this same process in any car dealership. The sales rep will approach you and ask what you like in the dealership. He will help choose a “make and model” appealing to the customers sense of snob appeal, what will others think of you, will you be moving clients in the vehicle, etc. (Realtors will take a similar approach by appealing to the needs of the buyers particular class; in many cases customers are buying a neighbourhood and neighbours as well a house.) When you have chosen, negotiation over price begins. (Dealerships prefer their customers to take a lease rather than making cash purchases. This is because the dealership makes an average profit of $82 from a cash purchase, if you finance the car through the dealership they will make an average profit of $775 and if you lease the car the dealership will make an average of $1300.) Financing is pushed on customers through the popularization of the “credit rating” something the rich steadfastly refuse to use. In one dealership the sales representative would agree to a price with the customer only to “leave to talk to the boss” because he was afraid he had “made too much of a deal.” When the salesman returned he would say that he could offer the car to the person for, say, $500 more than previously agreed upon. What’s surprising is that a majority of people will still buy the car even after the dealership raises the cost when a deal has already been made.
People will commit to one thing and be manipulated into agreeing to another under the pretence of consistency. Guilt will be produced, a sense of unfairness, all because of a sales tactic.
Outside of the world of sales, people are making commitments every day. People make religious, political, romantic and ideological commitments every day.
The world of politics offers a particularly salient example. Consider the platform that any given political party uses during an election. They make grandiose promises to reform social systems, fix healthcare problems, reform immigration policy – promises on which they’re supposedly elected. When they come to power, however, they rarely act upon the principles laid out in their platform. Furthermore, they will often neglect to reverse changes made by a past administration which they resisted during their time in opposition. The result of this is that the outcome of any political campaign is irrelevant because nothing is ever done and nothing ever changes.
Why then do people support their elected officials even after they shirk their democratic responsibility? The reason is quite simply that people are committed to their officials because they have a desire to appear to be consistent in their choices. There is “party loyalty” and the notion of “constituency,” both of which play on the idea of consistency and commitment. Whole parties and governmental systems exist simply because the electorate supports their decision even after the grounds upon which they based their decision is removed.
Power Struggles
The effects of power are felt beyond the realms of those controlled. Often those in power become maligned based only on the power they possess. In 1971 a professor at Stanford by the name of Philip Zimbardo set out to explore the behavioural effects of captivity on both the captive and the authority.
The experiment was called the Stanford Prison Experiment. The original design was for a two week test where volunteers would be brought to a prison on the University’s Campus, detained in the basement and supervised by other volunteers. Participants were paid $15 for taking part in this study.
24 participants were chosen from 75 who volunteered; Zimbardo selected them because they were “the most psychologically stable and healthy.”
Guards were given military style clothing and mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact. Prisoners were given ill fitting clothing and shoes which would force them to adopt “unfamiliar body postures.” They were given nylon coverings for their heads to simulate baldness and numbers corresponding to each prisoner were sewn into their clothes. In addition, prisoners were only to be referred to by their numbers. All of this contributed to a sense of dehumanization that prisoners in any state institution would feel. Guards were permitted to create a sense of boredom, fear and control in the detainees but never to harm them. One guard was assigned the role of “warden” and Zimbardo himself would take on the role of “superintendant.”
On the first day of the experiment prisoners were arrested at their homes, fingerprinted and booked by the participating Palo Alto Police Department. From the police station they were taken to Zimbardo’s mock prison into the basement of Stanford’s Jordan Hall.
The experiment quickly got out of hand.
After a relatively uneventful first day a riot broke out the second. Guards volunteered to work extra hours with no extra pay to help break the riot. During this time prisoners were attacked with fire extinguishers without permission from research staff, the guards were taking initiative and identifying with their roles. One prisoner, #8612, had to be released after only 36 hours because he was “acting crazy” and showed signs of mental disturbances and real emotional stress. Zimbardo said it took him and his associates some time to realize the man was “really suffering.”
As the experiment proceeded the abuses became worse and worse. Bathroom “rights” became privileges, prisoners from “bad” cell blocks had their mattresses removed and were forced to sleep naked on the concrete floor. In fact, forced nudity and sexual humiliation became a staple of the experiment.
A new prisoner, #416, was brought in to replace the absent detainee. Horrified at the abuses he went on a hunger strike to protest the conditions. The guards responded to this by locking him in solitary confinement (a closet). They forced him to stand and hold the meal he refused to eat while the other prisoners were made to punch the door and yell profanities at him. The other prisoners came to see #416 as a troublemaker. Guards capitalized on this feeling by offering the prisoners an option, they could give up their blankets or #416 would stay in solitary confinement overnight. Only one prisoner gave up his blanket.
On day 4 of the experiment rumours began to circulate about a possible break-out attempt. In response to this Zimbardo asked the Palo Alto Police Department if he could move the experiment to an unoccupied cell block of the departments’ jail. The Department refused citing liability concerns. Zimbardo became disgusted and angry with the lack of cooperation from the police.
Zimbardo later concluded, “Prisoner participants had internalized their role.” This was true of the guards as well and Zimbardo himself had become caught up in his own role as prison “superintendant.” Zimbardo later wrote of the guards “[their behaviour demonstrates] the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional supports.” He wrote of prisons, “They are as bad for the guards as the prisoners in terms of their destructive impact on self-esteem, sense of justice and human compassion.”
Zimbardo invited his girlfriend Christina Maslach, who was also a student, to conduct interviews with the studies’ participants. When she came to the prison she witnessed prisoners being taken to the bathroom before bed. Their ankles were tied to one another and paper bags over their heads. Maslach was appalled and turned away from the spectacle only to be teased by the other psychologists. She reported later a feeling that something was wrong with her because of her reaction. Zimbardo later noted that over 50 other people had seen the experiment but Maslach was the only one to question the morality of the proceedings.
The experiment, meant to last 2 weeks, was terminated after only 6 days. By this time some of the guards had become “genuinely sadistic.” Prisoners showed “severe emotional disturbances.” Zimbardo, himself, failed to see the questionable ethics and practices of his experiment justifying it in the name of science.
The experiment shows that the most well adjusted people will adopt a role and play it to its horrifying conclusion with almost no real pressure.
Final thoughts...
The Stanford Prison Experiment is significant because it reveals a systemic pathology in those who control a system. Whenever authority is given to one group the oppression of another must follow.
The implications of these studies are clear, even today. At Abu Ghraib there were revelations of the torture of detainees by guards. The Globe and Mail reported that Canadians were handing over prisoners to Afghan authorities even when it was known that the prisoners would be tortured. The nightmares of much of America’s torture policy in Iraq were laid out in a BBC documentary called, “Taxi to the Dark Side.” The documentary shows a clear a deliberate policy of torture by allied forces in the Middle East.
We are all complicit in the things which our nations do. We sponsor bombings, prisons, torture and all manner of mayhem with our money and we endorse it with our silence.
To understand our place in the world we must first understand ourselves. Socrates said, “Know thyself.” But if we are to really know ourselves we must have an understanding of those things which may manipulate us. We must understand our own psychology, how the mind works and only then will we be free to make a real choice.
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References.
- The Globe and Mail – Canada Complicit in Torture of Innocent Afghans, Diplomat Says. Steve Chase Nov. 18, 2009
- Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. – Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion
- Edward Bernays – Propaganda
- Vance Packard – The Status Seekers
- Marshall McLuhan – The Medium is the Massage
- Dave Ramsey – Financial Peace University [for car dealership profit margins]
- www.stanford.edu
- www.alanwattsentientsentinel.eu
- Psychology lectures from Jeremy Wolfe at MIT
- Social Psychology and Human Emotion lectures from Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley
- BBC Documentary – Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
Articles written by Thomas Dean
A special thanks to all of those who helped me realize the dire nature of the problems at hand, were it not for them this newsletter would never have been started and I would have wallowed in ignorance longer than I already have.
“When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man… He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.”
Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
