Some of the common questions that psychologists try to answer are; why do people conform in groups, and why do they always obey authority figures even though they lose their control by doing so. One of the issues that individuals strive to have throughout their lives is control. Almost everyone wishes to have control over his/her thoughts, actions, or behaviors. People want to have the power to make their independent decisions without the influence of others. But in the contemporary universe in which everything seems to be mutually interdependent, no one can say that he/she has absolute control over anything including themselves. Instead, what people have is the influence. Surprisingly, almost all individuals’ actions, thoughts, and behaviors are influenced by others (Roberts, 2018). The closer someone is to another one, the greater the former’s actions and thoughts influence those of the latter and vise versa. The influence of groups and authority in dictating individuals’ actions and behaviors is one of the issues that Richard Nisbett discusses in his four minutes video Think You’re Thinking for Yourself? Think Again.

In his opening remarks, Richard states that “There is no more central message of psychology than the fact that most of what goes on in our heads we no access to” (Nisbett, 2015). It is this powerful statement that remains the key subject of his discussion throughout the video. Many people always think that they can make independent decisions based on their interests, however from the video, it is evident that individuals lack absolute control over various issues including themselves. One reason why this occurs is that of the influence of power and authority. According to (Pavalache-Ilie&Cazan, 2018), individuals’ actions are subject to their environment which significantly influence their personality traits. Individuals always agree that personality is unique to each person simply because different people have different personalities. However, the closeness an individual is to others always result in the person imitating or adopting the characters of others.

In one of his early works, David Riesman postulated the three types of personalities, tradition-oriented, inner-oriented, and other-directed oriented personalities, which he argued were essential in understanding how the environment influences individuals’ behavior and more importantly how group presence impacts on their actions. In the tradition-oriented personality, for instance, David argued that individuals with such personality always places a strong emphasis on doing things the same way they have been done (Maccoby, 2016). That is, individuals with tradition-oriented personality seem to conform to the existing social or religious beliefs, organizational structure, or family traditions without question their relevancy. This is exactly what Robert explains in the video where he gives an example where households who were consuming more units of power were forced to conform to the demands of other households who were using less power simply by the action of placing of tags on the formers’ doors.

As a member of a church and a sporting team, I have had the first-hand experience on how other people influence the actions and behaviors of others. When training in our football team, the captain of the team is always the one to guide us on matters concerning physical fitness before the coach comes. Because of the power and responsibility he is given as the head of the players, we all follow his moves and demand without questions. The same scenario occurs in the temple where any Sikh has the power to lead prayers and recite the scriptures to the congregation during Gurdwara services. In such instances, the congregation always view the Sikh leading the prayers as a religious leader thus giving him all the attention during the services. These two examples indicate that individuals’ actions are always influenced by those close to us, and more importantly those in leadership positions.

References

Maccoby, M. (2016). David Riesman’s Mission. David Riesman’s Unpublished Writings and Continuing Legacy, 181.

Nisbett R. (2015). Think You’re Thinking for Yourself? Think Again. Big Think. Retrieved 21^st January 2019 from https://bigthink.com/videos/richard-nisbett-on-the-influence-of-other-people.

Pavalache-Ilie, M., &Cazan, A. M. (2018). Personality correlates of pro-environmental attitudes. International journal of environmental health research, 28(1), 71-78.

Roberts, B. W. (2018). A revised sociogenomic model of personality traits. Journal of personality, 86(1), 23-35.

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