Social Influence (A) Enhance Our Understanding Of Anti-Social Behaviour
How does research on social influence (such as the works of Asch, Milgram and Zimbardo) enhance our understanding of anti-social behaviour?
The Crime and Disorder Act (1998, cited in Home Office, 2004) defines anti-social behaviour (ASB) as acting in an inconsiderate manner towards a person with the intention of causing harm, or distress or, causing alarming damage to society through negligence. In the UK, ASB refers to low-level criminality, nuisance, and public disturbance (Brown, 2013). Following the English riots of summer 2011 the subject of ASB has received great attention from politicians and the media in recent years. Our ability to understand anti-social behaviour stems from research on social influence which looks at how our …show more content…
It appears that authority figures need not be people like the police, but rather the head or leader of a gang. Outsiders wishing to become members of a gang may be willing to carry out instructions given by those above them because they want a place to belong in a society that marginalises them. These orders may be acts that fall under ASB such as abusive verbal behaviour towards members of the public, drug and alcohol misuse and handling of stolen property. Milgram proposed the agentic shift theory as an explanation for the two levels that people operate on. This can be used to better understand why people engage in ASB. He argued that people shift backward and forward between an autonomous state where we behave voluntarily, and see ourselves as responsible for our actions, and an agentic state where we see ourselves as agents of authority carrying out the instructions of another person and not being responsible for our actions. Zimbardo 's experiment on how easily people would conform to the roles they were given in a prison simulation can be used to understand ASB. In prisons everyone has a role that they play, there are prisoners and guards who are people of authority and give orders to prisoners who readily carry out their orders in order to fit in and because they have no choice. Despite resisting to conform to their roles at first, participants playing the role of the prisoner became obedient to the guards six days into the experiment, but this was only after the guards had begun to behave brutally towards the
The Crime and Disorder Act (1998, cited in Home Office, 2004) defines anti-social behaviour (ASB) as acting in an inconsiderate manner towards a person with the intention of causing harm, or distress or, causing alarming damage to society through negligence. In the UK, ASB refers to low-level criminality, nuisance, and public disturbance (Brown, 2013). Following the English riots of summer 2011 the subject of ASB has received great attention from politicians and the media in recent years. Our ability to understand anti-social behaviour stems from research on social influence which looks at how our …show more content…
It appears that authority figures need not be people like the police, but rather the head or leader of a gang. Outsiders wishing to become members of a gang may be willing to carry out instructions given by those above them because they want a place to belong in a society that marginalises them. These orders may be acts that fall under ASB such as abusive verbal behaviour towards members of the public, drug and alcohol misuse and handling of stolen property. Milgram proposed the agentic shift theory as an explanation for the two levels that people operate on. This can be used to better understand why people engage in ASB. He argued that people shift backward and forward between an autonomous state where we behave voluntarily, and see ourselves as responsible for our actions, and an agentic state where we see ourselves as agents of authority carrying out the instructions of another person and not being responsible for our actions. Zimbardo 's experiment on how easily people would conform to the roles they were given in a prison simulation can be used to understand ASB. In prisons everyone has a role that they play, there are prisoners and guards who are people of authority and give orders to prisoners who readily carry out their orders in order to fit in and because they have no choice. Despite resisting to conform to their roles at first, participants playing the role of the prisoner became obedient to the guards six days into the experiment, but this was only after the guards had begun to behave brutally towards the