“researchers use naturalistic observation to determine an effect’s presence in the real world, theory to determine what processes underlie the effect, experimentation to verify the effect and its underlying processes, and a return to the natural environment to corroborate the experimental findings” (Mortensen & Cialdini, 2010, p. 53)
This is a great "Psychological Experiment Process".
Technology
I'm concerned about how this relates to people being influenced on social media or being able to "hide" or pretend behind their screens.
. However, what does this tell us about helping behaviors in the real world?
This reminds me of an article I read when I was carrying out research in the field of Educational Psychology, "Psychology: The Hardest Science of All". The argument that research in the psychological field will always be harder and/or more complex because, unlike Physics, Chemistry, Biology and all, there is no fixed answer for anything, thus, generalisations can never be made.
group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies and are even a good idea to maintain order and stability
Does this apply this things like patriarchy?
“following orders” or “just doing my job,”
This transfers blame to other people as no one wants to ultimately take the blame for any deplorable act.
whether we conform to the norm is up to us.
I'm not sure if I always agree with this seeing as I just took the Persuasion and Selling Unit and discovered that our subconscious can be played and made to think or decide or do something that we might not have been convinced of initially.
They notice the boisterous heavy drinker at the party but fail to consider all the students not attending the party.
This is extremely interesting - something I never thought about. It's also something that proves that we all conform to something - it just depends on what. And this scenario shows this really well. It's just unfortunate which action stands out more and causes people to fall victim of the consequences.
but their concern for what these other people might be thinking about them overpowered their desire to do the right thing.
Is refusing to obey in situations like this what makes people "strong-willed"? And does compliance in situations like this make people weak-willed or just human?
They want the door to be slammed in their face. Looking forlorn, they now follow this with a smaller request, which, unknown to the customer, was their target all along.
When I participated as a caller in a Donation Campaign, we used this strategy. Then, it seemed so magical but now, relating it to psychology, I see why it makes sense. We had a target of $10 donations so we would start at $20, expecting the door to be slammed in our faces. We would then cut the commitment to $10 and if the person still said no, we could even make it a commitment of $2 for 5 months making the commitment seem smaller but helping us reach our target.
If they don’t like you, you can hit every rule right on target and it doesn’t matter
This reminds me of why brand building, brand management and public relations are so important. If a business gets it right, they can just about sell anything eventually but if it's wrong, it can take ages to build back up.
When persuasion is well-meaning, we might call it education. When it is manipulative, it might be called mind control
I think this effectively answers my question "where does one draw the line between persuasion and manipulation"? It is the intention that matters and that changes the entire process.