Can an authority figures influence human behaviour?

Milgram (1963) stated that “obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual actions to political purposes.” His theoretical proposition for the study is that obedience is so ingrained, that people tend to obey other people at higher position even if they have to violate their own morals and ethics (Milgram, 1974). He recruited forty males between ages twenty and fifty from New Haven through newspaper ads and mail solicitations.

The experiment was held at Yale University, to increase the perceived legitimacy and the participants were told that they were involved in an experiment of role-playing as a teacher, a learner and an experimenter. The teacher observed the learner being strapped down to an electric chair connected to a shock generator stating the voltage levels form 15-450 volts. The teacher was administered to shock the learner if one answered wrongly until the learner seized.

Obviously, the participants might be so awed by the university based on its virtue that they would do anything as instructed regardless of its pros and cons towards destructive obedience. Milgram (1963) perceived the cause as environmental factors. He then did experimentation in the Yale basement, a dark basement to conclude his findings that the results produced from all two locations were totally similar to his first study. (Elms, 1995)

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Find out more about our Essay Writing Service

Nonetheless, majority of the followers has the concept that if they follow as instructed by an authority, they will be highly rewarded if not punished for not doing so especially people in the military regiment (e.g. American soldiers and bomb-suicides religious cults). Justifying their stand by rationalizing their thoughts that they were merely obeying to commands to conduct destructive behaviour. (Elms, 1995)

An authority figure is able to influence human behaviour because obedience is so innate in us from young that we comply with people of higher authority to play safe.

References

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67 (4), 371-378

Elms, A. (1995). Obedience in retrospect. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 21-31 Retrieved January, 13, 2010

7. Weinberg (1989) identifies some of the limitations and problems with IQ tests and testing. What does more contemporary research suggest? Find a more recent journal article on IQ testing and discuss.

Vernon (1965) stated that majority of us would perceive the deaf people as having low intelligence compared with hearing people.

The journal that I used was a review of literature on IQ testing on deaf children of other author’s papers and the implications they found fifty-years later. This kind of intensive research effort is significant as it contributes to the role of people who were classified as normal compared to severe hearing impairment people in testing their intelligence.

Firstly, severely hearing-impaired has problem hearing what is required of them to accomplish cognition tasks via hearing. Therefore, the limitation is hearing because they are a language-deprived group and performing IQ tests acquired cognitive skills to do the tasks, the implication follows that level of language development may not be related to cognitive functioning. Interestingly, the deaf, a language-deprived group, score as well as the controls that have normal language development.

Secondly, it has been noted that deaf children, a group that lack of culture which denotes the inefficiency use of language performed similarly well as normal hearing children without these deprivation. The implication is that cultural deprivation, language and deficiency in hearing do not play the role in the development of intelligence.

Perhaps, limitation for this study is that there is no study of the intelligence of the adult deaf reported in the literature which might show researcher biasness in reporting the results. The implication of the research of the last fifty years which compared the IQ of the deaf with the hearing and of subgroups of deaf children indicates that when there is no complicating multiple handicaps, the deaf and hard-of-hearing function at approximately the same IQ level on performance intelligence tests versus the ones who are able to hear.

References

Vernon (2005). Fifty Years of Research on the Intelligence of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children: A Review of Literature and Discussion of Implications. University of Oxford Journal on deaf studies and deaf education. doi:10.1093/deafed/eni024 Retrieved January, 15, 2010

Weinberg, R.A. (1989). Intelligence and IQ: Landmark issues and great debates. American Psychologist, 44 (2), 89 -104.

8. Beck (1993) outlines a cognitive approach to therapy in the treatment of depression. Choose an alternative therapeutic approach to the treatment of depression and discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach you have selected as opposed to Cognitive Therapy.

Indeed, music plays a significant role in our daily life. Imagine the world without music; people would not be able to transmit their thoughts and feelings to one another which is also a medium to assist people in expressing their inner feelings. Cohen (1999) suggested that music has been a powerful healing agent in primitive cultures until the present-day societies.

Supposedly, everyone should have heard of music-therapy to treat depression. Music therapy consists of different treatment methodology that combines acquiring music with the practice of psychological paradigms such as music improvisation. Because music is a non-verbal means of expression that can create atmosphere of which tension is released, stress is reduced and the occurrence of self-expression. According to Pavlicevic (2000), music improvisation has been argued by music therapists that are underpinned with medical, neurological, social, psychological or psychodynamic thinking.

In addition, music-therapy deals with the emotional and social goals by addressing the developmental issues (e.g. memory, concentration skills), physical (e.g. gross and motor skills) and cognition skills. These skills are vital to survive in the society socially and academically compared to cognitive therapy whereby the treatment is not all-rounded. Cognitive therapy solely helps to eliminate depression but not considering the person’s well-being.

However, there were some implications as to unable to resolve their inner problems in music-therapy whereas for cognitive therapy it allows one to talk about anything which is totally random to the therapist which display higher chances of solving their inner problems. Additionally, no robust effects on people treated with cognitive therapy but numerous of empirical findings to support the application of music therapy who has depression.

In sum, music-therapy could be an alternative approach to treat depression as opposed to cognitive therapy given the reasons above.

References

Beck, A. T. (1993). Cognitive Therapy: Past, present, and future. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61 (2), 194-198

Wu (2002). Effects of music therapy on anxiety, depression and self-esteem of undergraduates. Psychologia, 2002, 45, 104-114

9. Jacklin (1989) reviews some of the previous research associated with gender during children’s development (e.g., difference between girls and boys as they grow). What does more contemporary research suggest? Find a more recent journal article investigating the issue of children and gender, then discuss.

This article that I found investigated gender differences in throwing among ages 6-8 years old during a throwing game. To assess throwing form to gauge the impact of how the children perform in the limited context of the game is to understand the way they develop, whether they could perform the throw from the instructions given by the instructor during the game and determines how sensitive the children were while performing a task with environment limitations. (Lorson and Goodway, 2008 as cited Barrett and Burton, 2002)

The purpose of this study is to describe throwing patterns in 6-8 years old children during a throwing. This study aims to examine the body component levels (e.g. step, trunk and forearm) and component profiles demonstrated during a throw. Results show that boys outdo the girls in gender differences, body components and profiles. Boys develop coordination faster to transfer energy from step and trunk to other segments of the body components such as humerus and forearm compared to girls whom require more practice to develop into the advanced stages. (as cited Stodden, Langendorfer, Fleisig and Andrews, 2006).

Improvements in throwing by both genders are affected by socio-cultural reasons not pre-disposed biologically. Girls need more encouragement to input the throw forcefully while boys are more self-driven in performing to show-off their skills. (Lorson and Goodway, 2008 as cited Ehl, Roberton and Langendorfer, 2005; Garcia and Garcia, 2002)

Lorson and Goodway (2008) suggested that future research could examine the social aspects during games, what are the motivators currently and the long-term effect of taking part in throwing activities. Establish the feasibility and usefulness from its approach.

Ultimately, the problem lies within the difference on the developmental body components of children on both gender as girls and boys develop differently in terms of coordination and the transfer of strength of throwing.

References

Jacklin, C. N. (1989). Female and Male: Issue of gender. American Psychologist, 44 (2), 127-133

Kevin M Lorson and Jacqueline D Goodway (2008). Gender Differences in Throwing Form of Children Ages 6-8 Years during a throwing game. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport; 79, (2) 174-182

10. Does emotional expression change as people age? Find a second article and discuss this issue.

Alea, Diehl and Bluck (2004) suggested that the definition of emotion is defined as temporary-lived responses to events that involve physiological needs, expressive behaviours and subjective experiences. Emotions, as a short-lived responses worked in a transition stage at multiple levels involving body physiology, subjective experiences and expressive behaviours to respond instantaneously to an event.

Three ways in which emotion could be expressed fundamentally: facial expression, verbal or non-verbal expression and the way one behaves. Levenson et.al (1991) studied the facial expressions portrayed from the younger to the older adults while they were remembering and depicting their own emotional experiences. Attempting to figure out the adults’ expressions, they failed to differentiate how adults expressed the primary emotions, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and surprise.

Carstensen (1992) proposed Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory which mentioned that people express different kinds of emotions in a new chapter of their lives are selective in social-networking as they grew older, partly because they want closed-relatedness, intimacy and affectionate experiences in order to bond positive and gratifying social relationships.

Carstensen’s (1992) tied theory of emotion to different life phases with regards to social-networks. Majority of the relationships were linked with emotion, cognition and personality at different walks in life.

Vief (2001) cognitive-affective developmental theory of emotion highlighted the functioning of emotion connecting to the development of the mental processes and our ego occurring for survival. A debatable subject that emotion should be measured qualitatively at different lifetime acquiring self-awareness to note the complexities of processing information as we function into adulthood.

Ultimately, emotional expressions do change as people age because we need to adapt to the environment or circumstances. However, if the same circumstances postulates, our reactions to those circumstances would be very similar to our adolescent age. (Strongman and Overton, 1999)