Influence on Behavior

In social psychology, social influence is a process where someone’s beliefs, thoughts and behaviour change by being exposed to beliefs, thoughts and opinions of others. It manifests in several forms, such as obedience, compliance and conformity. All these types of social influence have been studied by numerous researchers who investigated the reasons why people conform to social norms and obey to authorities, such as Milgram’s classic studies on obedience. His experiments support the popular idea of ‘banality of evil’ –Hannah Arendt (1963)’s famous phrase referring to the capability to accomplish dreadful things out of banal reasons–, revealing that people conform submissively and thoughtlessly to the orders that authorities deliver, no

Within psychology, there are several perspectives used to describe, predict, and explain human behavior. The seven major perspectives in modern psychology are psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/biopsychological, evolutionary, and sociocultural. Describe the perspectives, using two to three sentences each. Select one major figure associated with one of the perspectives and describe his or her work in two to three sentences. Type your response in the space below.

Identify one of today's perspectives in psychology (Ch. 1, Module 2) that most closely aligns with your own views and discuss what relates to your own beliefs and thinking in this approach.

An example of how social norm effects people’s behavior online, can be showed through the topic of eating behavior. Social networks have created a place where information can be post about what other people think/ does and what they expect them to do. So, if someone say’s eating burgers make you fat, from Chapter 3 of Nudge two possible things can influence a person information and peer pressure. Information affects behavior in this situation because other people opinions convey what they think is best for you. Peer pressure affects Information affects behavior in this situation as people conform to others ways to avoid one’s

The four major perspectives of Psychology are: Biological, Learning, Cognitive, and Sociocultural. First, is the biological perspective which relates to bodily events that affect the behavior, feelings, and thoughts. During the biological perspective electrical impulses shoot along the nervous system and hormones flow through the blood stream alerting the internal organs to slow down or speed up. The biological perspective affects the nervous system, hormones, brain chemistry, heredity, and evolutionary influences. A child who has been exposed to abuse may also grow up to abusive which is an example of the biological perspective. Second, is the learning perspective which the environment and experience affect the behavior of humans or animals. The environment either rewards or punish that maintains or discourage behaviors. Behaviors are based on acts and events taking place within the environment. Environmental influences, observations and imitation, beliefs, and values affect the learning perspective. A violent role model can influence a child to behave aggressively is an example of the learning perspective. Third, is the cognitive perspective which is the psychological approach that emphasizes mental process in perception, memory, language, and problem solving. The cognitive perspective shows how thoughts and explanations affect their actions, feelings, and choices. The cognitive approach is one of the strongest forces in psychology. A violent person may be quick to

Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.

There are many different perspectives in modern psychology, they are known as behaviourist, humanistic, psychodynamic, social learning theory (SLT), Biological and cognitive. Amongst these approaches there are similarities and differences, such as the cognitive approach, this conducts scientific experiments to measure mental processes therefore dismissing the psychodynamic use of introspection.

* Psychological Perspectives: general points of view used for explaining people’s behavior and thinking, whether normal or abnormal.

This study will focus on the impact social influences have on participants when asked to listen to songs played backwards containing subliminal messages and whether being told that a particular song contains secret messages will impact their responses. This study will take into consideration past studies conducted by researchers Thorne (1984) and Vokey (1985) whom support that the role of suggestion can influence peoples perceptions of secret messages in rock and roll recordings. We the experimenters will be expanding on the music genres, but try to contain a minimum of one rock and roll song. Taking this into our focus will be observing how social influence will impact participant’s capability to write down more

One of the major psychological perspectives that I find the most interesting is the humanistic approach because I agree that the environment that a person is currently in can either negatively or positively affect growth. As it states in the textbook, Exploring Psychology, humanistic psychology focuses less on the early years of a person’s life and more on the requirements a person needs to grow. The environment that a person is in can largely affect their mood and their thoughts. Another major psychological perspective that I am interested in is the biological approach because I previously never thought about genetics as a factor of human behavior. Despite my lack of previous knowledge about this perspective, I agree that it plays a role in

It seems that the people we surround ourselves with have a significant affect on our own behavior. Asch's study concluded that on average participants answered basic questions 37% of the time wrong with confederates, but only answered 1% of the time wrong when they were left alone. The extend of conformity indicated by the study suggests that if we surround ourselves with positive people and disregard negative people, then that can dramatically improve our lives. Normative and informational social influences can push us to either be more or less successful in

Albert Fish was a 20th century serial killer, child rapist, sadomasochist, and cannibal. This paper is a brief description focused on the forces that impacted his life from the viewpoint of developmental psychology. The author made an effort to distinguish between the influences of hereditary and environment on psychological development. He also explains what family issues and social support systems may have influenced Albert Fish’s developmental growth and adjustment. Two different theories of personality selected by the author was applied to Fish, which includes a discussion of how each theory differs in

Informational Influence and Normative Influence are both categorized under conformity in sociology. Informational is basically when we conform to others behavior because we believe it provides information about reality. It is often when we care about getting the right answer and trying to be rational. It also deals with the "Maybe they know something I don't know" phenomenon. An example, could be choosing to eat at a busier restaurant opposed to the empty one, or imitating the locals when outside your country. In contrast, Normative Influence is when we conform to others behavior because they expect us to. This is when we believe conforming may have positive consequences, such as approval or the enhancement of our reputation, or when we believe not conforming may have negative consequences, such as disapproval or punishment. An example of Normative Influence is laughing at a joke you don't get, or agreeing with an opinion you believe in others.

“Social influence is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others” (Feldman 495). These influences are strongly experienced by members in the group. Every group is unique and is mostly guided by a particular norm and behavior. An individual in a group passively or actively allows himself to be influenced by the group just to have a sense of belongingness. In the bid to prevent being excluded or rejected from a group, some individuals overtly adhere to the norms of the group. “Thus, people conform to meet the expectations of the group” (Feldman 495).

Another form of social influence is obedience. Obedience occurs when an individual acts in response to an order by a person in authority whether that order goes against what they know to be right or not. This can be done to gain acceptance or to avoid punishment. Obedience accounts for a large amount of the medication errors that happen in hospitals each day. An example of this is a nurse following a doctor’s order even when the doctor’s orders go against her professional obligations. This was demonstrated in an experiment conducted by C. Hofling. In Hofling’s experiment 22 nurses who worked at a hospital were contacted by a staff doctor that they did not know. They were told to give twice the highest dose of a drug to his patient. If the nurses did what they were told they would be going against three different rules. First, they were not to accept doctor’s orders over the phone. Second, the dose called for by the doctor was double the maximum for that drug. Third, the medication was not on their authorized list of medications. Of the 22 nurses 21