Defamation
Defamation, vilification, or traducement is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of, depending on the law of the country, an individual, product, government, religion, or nation. Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must be false and must have been made to someone other than the person defamed; some common law jurisdictions distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel. False light laws protect against statements which are not technically false, but which are misleading. In some civil law jurisdictions, defamation is treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong; the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled in 2012 that the libel law of one country, the Philippines, was inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as urging that "State parties should consider the decriminalization of libel". In Saudi Arabia, defamation of the state, or a past or present ruler, is punishable under terrorism legislation.
A person who defames another may be called a "defamer", "libeler", "slanderer", or a "famacide". The term libel is derived from the Latin libellus; as of 2017, at least 130 UNESCO Member States retained criminal defamation laws. In 2017, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media issued a report on criminal defamation and anti-blasphemy laws among its Member States, which found that defamation is criminalized in nearly three-quarters of the 57 OSCE participating States. Many of the laws pertaining to defamation include specific provisions for harsher punishment for speech or publications critical of heads of state, public officials, state bodies and the State itself; the OSCE report noted that blasphemy and religious insult laws exist in around one third of OSCE participating States. In Africa, at least four Member States decriminalized defamation between 2012 and 2017; the ruling by the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights in Lohé Issa Konaté v. the Republic of Burkina Faso set a precedent in the region against imprisonment as a legitimate penalty for defamation, characterizing it as a violation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the treaty of the Economic Community of West African States.
Countries in every region have moved to advance the criminalization of defamation by extending legislation to online content. Cybercrime and anti-terrorism laws passed throughout the world have led to bloggers appearing before courts, with some serving time in prison; the United Nations, OSCE, Organisation of American States and African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression stated in a joint declaration in March 2017 that ‘general prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including "false news" or "non-objective information", are incompatible with international standards for restrictions on freedom of expression...and should be abolished.’ The common law origins of defamation lie in the torts of "slander" and "libel", each of which gives a common law right of action. Defamation is the general term used internationally, is used in this article where it is not necessary to distinguish between "slander" and "libel".
Libel and slander both require publication. The fundamental distinction between libel and slander lies in the form in which the defamatory matter is published. If the offending material is published in some fleeting form, as by spoken words or sounds, sign language, gestures or the like it is slander. Libel is defined as defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures; the law of libel originated in the 17th century in England. With the growth of publication came the growth of libel and development of the tort of libel. An early example of libel is the case of John Peter Zenger in 1735. Zenger was hired to publish New York Weekly Journal; when he printed another man's article that criticized William Cosby, British Royal Governor of Colonial New York, Zenger was accused of seditious libel. The verdict was returned as Not Guilty on the charge of seditious libel, because it was proven that all the statements Zenger had published about Cosby had been true, so there was not an issue of defamation.
Another example of libel is the case of New York Times Sullivan. The U. S. Supreme Court overruled a State court in Alabama that had found The New York Times guilty of libel for printing an advertisement that criticized Alabama officials for mistreating student civil rights activists. Though some of what The Times printed was false, the Court ruled in its favor, saying that libel of a public official requires proof of actual malice, defined as a "knowing or reckless disregard for the truth". There are several things. In the United States, a person must prove that 1) the statement was false, 2) caused harm, 3) was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement; these steps are for an ordinary citizen. For a celebrity or public official, a person must prove the first three steps, that the statement was made with the intent to do harm or with reckless disregard for the truth, specifically referred to as "actual malice". At one time, the honour of peers was protected
Bullying and emotional intelligence
Bullying is abusive social interaction between peers can include aggression and violence. Bullying is repetitive and enacted by those who are in a position of power over the victim. A growing body of research illustrates a significant relationship between bullying and emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a set of abilities related to the understanding and management of emotion as it relates to one's self and others. Mayer et al. defines the dimensions of overall EI as: "accurately perceiving emotion, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotion, managing emotion". The concept combines intellectual processes. Lower emotional intelligence appears to be related to involvement in bullying, as the bully and/or the victim of bullying. EI seems to play an important role in both bullying victimization in bullying. Bullying is the most prevalent form of violence in schools and has lasting consequences into adulthood. Increased concern regarding school bullying has been raised in part due to publicized suicides of childhood victims.
Around 40% of middle school children are directly involved in bullying at least once a week according to the National Center of Education Statistics. Pre-adolescent research confirms such a negative relationship between trait EI and bullying behavior, it was found that adolescent bullying peer relations are significantly negatively correlated with the dimension of EI, conceptualized by Lomas et al. as Understanding the Emotions of Others. While the term naming the dimension varies within the research, the dimension of EI that appears to have the strongest inverse relationship with enacting bullying behavior throughout the literature is one’s ability to understand the emotional experience of other people; because bullying behavior in school-aged children is related to lower levels of understanding of other’s emotions, one theory is that children who exhibit bullying behaviors are not able to understand the impact that they have on their victims. Indeed, when differentiating between the different components of empathy, it is the cognitive component that bullies seem to have the most deficit in.
In addition to the inability to relate to the emotions of others, research suggests that those who engage in bullying behavior may lack proper skills in dealing with their own emotions, another aspect of EI referred to as emotional facilitation or self-efficacy. The poor use of emotions is found to be significant in predicting problem behavior among adolescents, such as aggression, which can be characteristic in bullying behavior. In this way, the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions may play an important role in preventing children from engaging in bullying behavior. For example, in a study among adolescent girls, it was found that better management of stress could prevent the perpetuation of aggression and violence. Workplace bullying is reported to be far more prevalent than commonly thought. For some reason, workplace bullying seems to be widespread in healthcare organizations. Similar to the school environment for children, the work environment places groups of adult peers together in a shared space on a regular basis.
In such a situation, social interactions and relationships are of great importance to the function of the organizational structure and in pursuing goals. The emotional consequences of bullying put an organization at risk of losing victimized employees. Bullying contributes to a negative work environment, is not conducive to necessary cooperation and can lessen productivity at various levels. Bullying in the workplace is associated with negative responses to stress; the ability to manage emotions emotional stress, seems to be a important factor in different types of bullying. The workplace in general can be a stressful environment, so a negative way of coping with stress or an inability to do so can be damning. Workplace bullies may have low emotional intelligence. In this context, bullies are adept at influencing others; the combination of high social intelligence and low empathy is conducive to manipulative behavior, such that Hutchinson describes workplace bullying to be. In working groups where employees have low EI, workers can be persuaded to engage in unethical behavior.
With the bullies' persuasion, the work group is socialized in a way that rationalizes the behavior, makes the group tolerant or supportive of the bullying. Hutchinson & Hurley make the case that EI and leadership skills are both necessary to bullying intervention in the workplace, illustrates the relationship between EI, leadership and reductions in bullying. EI and ethical behavior among other members of the work team have been shown to have a significant impact on ethical behavior of nursing teams. Higher EI is linked to improvements in the work environment and is an important moderator between conflict and reactions to conflict in the workplace; the self-awareness and self-management dimensions of EI have both been illustrated to have strong positive correlations with effective leadership and the specific leadership ability to build healthy work environments and work culture. Given lower emotional intelligence, it is possible that many bullies are more malev
Waylon Smithers
Waylon J. Smithers Jr. referred to as Mr. Smithers or Smithers, is a recurring fictional character in the animated sitcom The Simpsons, voiced by Harry Shearer. Smithers first appeared in the episode "Homer's Odyssey", although his voice could be heard in the series premiere "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", he is the consummate executive and personal assistant of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's owner Mr. Burns. Smithers' loyalty and devotion to Mr. Burns was inspired from how numerous Fox executives and staff members acted towards Barry Diller; the idea for Smithers' ambiguous sexual orientation came from Sam Simon, who proposed that Smithers should be gay, but little attention should be drawn to it. Smithers' first name was derived from that of puppeteer Wayland Flowers. Smithers was colorized in his first appearance as black with blue hair. Matt Groening, in an interview with TMZ, said that this was a mistake but the producers didn't have enough money to correct it. Smithers is the loyal and sycophantic assistant to Mr. Burns, the relationship between the two is a frequent running gag on The Simpsons.
In many ways, Smithers represents the stereotype of a closeted gay man, numerous overt allusions and double entendres concerning his homosexuality are made, though some of the show's producers instead interpret him as a "Burns-sexual". In the season 27 episode "The Burns Cage", he came out as gay. Smithers is Mr. Burns' devoted executive assistant, his father, Waylon Smithers, Sr. worked for Burns until he died of radiation poisoning after saving Springfield from a potential nuclear meltdown, when Smithers was a baby. Up till 2016 he was not gay, but most people knew he was homosexual before he came out, it was revealed in a flashback that he was married to a woman once, but the two split up when Mr. Burns came between them. Smithers is shown to have a passionate and deep love for Mr. Burns, his sexual orientation has been characterized by the writers of the show as "Burns-sexual". Mr. Burns remained ignorant of Smithers' devoted adoration, much to Smithers' frustration. Mr. Burns himself has been involved with several women and, in "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love", Smithers is noticeably disgusted when Mr. Burns starts looking for a female companion.
Burns, for his part, views Smithers as somewhat of a lackey, albeit a valued one for his competence. He has "rewarded" Smithers' devotion with the future "honor" of being buried alive with him after he dies. Smithers has been shown to be somewhat dependent on his relationship with Burns. In "Homer the Smithers", Mr. Burns orders Smithers to take a vacation and Homer Simpson is hired as a temporary replacement; when Homer loses his temper and punches Mr. Burns in the face, Mr. Burns learns to become self-reliant and this results in Smithers being fired. Smithers decides that he needs to be Mr. Burns' assistant and gets his job back. In the season 27 episode "The Burns Cage", Smithers attempts to admit his love to Burns, who interrupts to reaffirm his contempt for his assistant. Smithers' official job at the power plant appears to be that of executive assistant, which he says is "actually about 2,800 smaller jobs" responsible for monitoring employee attendance, is a disciplinarian and has won dozens of employee of the month awards.
He has hinted at wanting to be promoted to the position of executive vice president, but Burns has quashed this dream, while whimsically bestowing the vice presidency on a dog. Smithers has the largest collection of Malibu Stacy dolls in Springfield and is the president of the Malibu Stacy fan club. Smithers was based on how numerous Fox executives and staff members acted towards Barry Diller; the idea for Smithers' orientation was pitched by Sam Simon, who proposed that Smithers should be gay, but the writers should never draw too much attention to it and should try to keep it in the back of their heads. Jay Kogen said "Originally he was gay and black... But we thought it was too much so we just kept him gay." The script for "Blood Feud" featured Smithers saying "Just leave me enough to get home to my wife and kids", but the line had to be cut for time. Smithers is voiced by Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns. Shearer is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. Dan Castellaneta fills in for Shearer at table reads and voices Smithers.
The name Waylon comes from the puppeteer Wayland Flowers. Smithers made his first appearance in "Homer's Odyssey", the third episode of the first season, although he can be heard over a speaker in The Simpsons series premiere "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". In his first visual appearance in "Homer's Odyssey", Smithers was mistakenly animated with the wrong color and was made darker than most characters by Gyorgi Peluci, the color stylist. David Silverman has claimed that Smithers was always intended to be "Mr Burns' white sycophant", the staff thought it "would be a bad idea to have a black subservient character" and so switched him to his intended color for his next episode. Silverman retconned this error by saying that Smithers had a tan from a recent holiday in the Caribbean; the first appearance of a yellow Smithers was "There's No Disgrace Like Home", the fourth episode of the first season. Smithers wears white shirt with a purple bowtie, he has yellow skin and gray/light brown hair.
Smithers' relationship with Mr. Burns has long been a running gag on The Simpsons. Smithers is an sycophantic assistant to Mr. Burns. There have been strong hints about Smithers' true feelings for his boss, with one of the earliest references being in the season one episode "The
Humiliation
Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decreased, it can be brought about through intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have committed a or unacceptable act. Whereas humility can be sought alone as a means to de-emphasize the ego, humiliation must involve other person, though not directly or willingly. Humiliation is an active research topic, is now seen as an important – and complex – core dynamic in human relationships, having implications at intrapersonal, interpersonal and international levels. A person who suffers from severe humiliation could experience major depressions, suicidal states, severe anxiety states such as post-traumatic stress disorder; the loss of status, like losing a job or being labeled as a liar or discredited unfairly, could cause people inability to behave in their communities.
Humiliated individuals could be provoked and crave for revenge, some people could feel worthless and helpless, creating suicidal thoughts if justice is not met. It can lead to new insights, activism and a new kinship with marginalized groups. Feelings of humiliation can produce'humiliated fury' which, when turned inward can result in apathy and depression, when turned outward can give rise to paranoia, sadistic behaviour and fantasies of revenge. Klein explains, "When it is outwardly directed, humiliated fury creates additional victims including innocent bystanders.... When it is inwardly directed, the resulting self-hate renders victims incapable of meeting their own needs, let alone having energy available to love and care for others." He goes on to say, "In either case, those who are consumed by humiliated fury are absorbed in themselves or their cause, wrapped in wounded pride..."A study by researchers at the University of Michigan revealed that “the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense experiences of social rejection.”
In other words and isolation are experienced as intensely as physical pain. Humiliating of one person by another is used as a way of asserting power over them, is a common form of oppression or abuse used in a police, military, or prison context during legal interrogations or illegal torture sessions. Many now-obsolete public punishments were deliberately designed to be humiliating, e.g. tarring and feathering lawbreakers, pillory, "mark of shame" as a means of "making an example" of a person and presenting a deterrent to others. Some practices, such as tarring and feathering, became tools of unofficial mob justice. In folk customs such as the English skimmington rides and rough music, dramatic public demonstrations of moral disapproval were enacted to humiliate transgressors and drive them out of the community; some U. S. states have experimented with humiliating or shaming lawbreakers by publishing their names and indicating their offense. In 2010, there was public outcry about reports showing police in Dongguan and Guangdong in China leading a parade of arrested prostitutes for the purpose of humiliating them.
The national Ministry of Public Security reprimanded the local police and affirmed that such punishments are not allowed. Donald Klein described humiliation as "a powerful factor in human affairs that has, for a variety of reasons, been overlooked by students of individual and collective behavior, it is a pervasive and all too destructive influence in the behavior of individuals, groups and nations."Though it is a subjective emotion, humiliation has a universal aspect which applies to all human beings: "it is the feeling of being put down, made to feel less than one feels oneself to be."A society that suffers from humiliation is an unstable one. The cognitive dissonance between the way in which the society is perceived and the way in which it sees itself can be so great that violence can result on a massive scale against people belonging to an out group. According to Jonathan Sacks, "By turning the question'What did we do wrong?' into'Who did this to us?', restores some measure of self-respect and provides a course of action.
In psychiatry, the clinical terms for this process are projection. Lindner, Evelin. Gender and global security: dignifying relationships from love and parenthood to world affairs. Contemporary Psychology Series. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger. ISBN 9780313354861. Miller, William Ian. Humiliation and other essays on honor, social discomfort, violence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801481178. Whisnant, Rebecca. "Pornography and consent". Sexualization and Society. Sage. 2. Doi:10.1177/2374623816662876. Pdf. Henryson, Dean. ″Girl Fighting Exposed.″ Createspace. ISBN 978-1493767496. Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Emotional Competency article on Humiliation Silvan Tomkins Site Resources on Shame and Humiliation Studies German football team humiliate Brazil 7-1 during World Cup Femenia, Nora. Healing Humiliation and the Need for Revenge
Inferno (Dante)
Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Paradiso; the Inferno tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; as an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Canto I The poem begins on the night of Maundy Thursday on March 24, A. D. 1300, shortly before dawn of Good Friday. The narrator, Dante himself, is thirty-five years old, thus "midway in the journey of our life" – half of the Biblical lifespan of seventy; the poet finds. He sets out to climb directly up a small mountain, but his way is blocked by three beasts he cannot evade: a lonza, a leone, a lupa; the three beasts, taken from the Jeremiah 5:6, are thought to symbolize the three kinds of sin that bring the unrepentant soul into one of the three major divisions of Hell.
According to John Ciardi, these are incontinence. It is now dawn of April 8, with the sun rising in Aries; the beasts drive him back despairing into the darkness of error, a "lower place" where the sun is silent. However, Dante is rescued by a figure who announces that he was born sub Iulio and lived under Augustus: it is the shade of the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, a Latin epic. Canto II On the evening of Good Friday, Dante hesitates. Beatrice had been moved to aid Dante by the Virgin Saint Lucia. Rachel, symbolic of the contemplative life appears in the heavenly scene recounted by Virgil; the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Canto III Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", most translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Dante and his guide hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people. Among these Dante recognizes a figure implied to be Pope Celestine V, whose "cowardice served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church".
Mixed with them are outcasts. These souls are forever unclassified. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them. Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood and tears that flows down their bodies; this symbolizes the repugnance of sin. This may be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived. After passing through the vestibule and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper; the ferry is piloted by Charon. Virgil forces Charon to take him by declaring, Vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds; the wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast with the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. The passage across the Acheron, however, is undescribed, since Dante faints and does not awaken until he is on the other side.
Canto IV Virgil proceeds to guide Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage; the sinners of each circle are punished for eternity in a fashion fitting their crimes: each punishment is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice. For example in the poem and Virgil encounter fortune-tellers who must walk forward with their heads on backward, unable to see what is ahead, because they tried to see the future through forbidden means; such a contrapasso "functions not as a form of divine revenge, but rather as the fulfilment of a destiny chosen by each soul during his or her life". People who sinned, but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory, where they labour to become free of their sins; those in Hell are people who are unrepentant. Dante's Hell is structurally based on the ideas of Aristotle, but with "certain Christian symbolisms and misconstructions of Aristotle's text".
Dante's three major cat
Bullying
Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict. Behaviors used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment or threat, physical assault or coercion, such acts may be directed towards particular targets. Rationalizations of such behavior sometimes include differences of social class, religion, sexual orientation, behavior, body language, reputation, strength, size, or ability. If bullying is done by a group, it is called mobbing. Bullying can be defined in many different ways. In the United Kingdom, there is no legal definition of bullying, while some states in the United States have laws against it. Bullying is divided into four basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal and cyber, it involves subtle methods of coercion, such as intimidation.
Bullying ranges from one-on-one, individual bullying through to group bullying called mobbing, in which the bully may have one or more "lieutenants" who may seem to be willing to assist the primary bully in his or her bullying activities. Bullying in school and the workplace is referred to as "peer abuse". Robert W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism. A bullying culture can develop in any context; this may include school, the workplace and neighborhoods. The main platform for bullying is on social media websites. In a 2012 study of male adolescent American football players, "the strongest predictor was the perception of whether the most influential male in a player's life would approve of the bullying behavior". There is no universal definition of bullying, however, it is agreed upon that bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three minimum criteria: hostile intent, imbalance of power, repetition over a period of time. Bullying may thus be defined as the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, mentally, or emotionally.
The Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus says bullying occurs when a person is "exposed and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons". He says negative actions occur "when a person intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, through words or in other ways." Individual bullying is characterized by a person behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person. Individual bullying can be classified into four types. Collective bullying is known as mobbing, can include any of the individual types of bullying. Physical and relational bullying are most prevalent in primary school and could begin much earlier whilst continuing into stages in individuals lives, it is stated. Individual bullying tactics can be perpetrated by a single person against targets; this is any bullying that hurts damages their possessions. Stealing, hitting and destroying property all are types of physical bullying. Physical bullying is the first form of bullying that a target will experience.
Bullying will begin in a different form and progress to physical violence. In physical bullying the main weapon the bully uses is their body. Sometimes groups of young adults will target and alienate a peer because of some adolescent prejudice; this can lead to a situation where they are being taunted and beaten-up by their classmates. Physical bullying will escalate over time, can lead to a tragic ending, therefore must be stopped to prevent any further escalation; this is any bullying, conducted by speaking. Calling names, spreading rumors, threatening somebody, making fun of others are all forms of verbal bullying. Verbal bullying is one of the most common types of bullying. In verbal bullying the main weapon the bully uses is their voice. In many cases, verbal bullying is the province of girls. Girls are more subtle, in general, than boys. Girls use verbal bullying, as well as social exclusion techniques, to dominate and control other individuals and show their superiority and power. However, there are many boys with subtlety enough to use verbal techniques for domination, who are practiced in using words when they want to avoid the trouble that can come with physically bullying someone else.
This is any bullying, done with the intent to hurt somebody's reputation or social standing which can link in with the techniques included in physical and verbal bullying. Relational Bullying is a form of bullying common amongst youth, but upon girls. Relational bullying can be used as a tool by bullies to both improve their social standing and control others. Unlike physical bullying, obvious, relational bullying is not overt and can continue for a long time without being noticed. Cyber bullying is the use of technology to harass, embarrass, or target another person; when an adult is involved, it may meet the definition of cyber-harassment or cyberstalking, a crime that can have legal consequences and involve jail time. This includes email, instant messaging, social networking sites, text messages, cell phones. Collective bullying tactics are employed by more than one individual against targets. Trolling behavior on social media, although gener
Obedience (human behavior)
Obedience, in human behavior, is a form of "social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure". Obedience is distinguished from compliance, behavior influenced by peers, from conformity, behavior intended to match that of the majority. Depending on context, obedience can be seen as immoral, or amoral. Humans have been shown to be obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures, as shown by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s, carried out by Stanley Milgram to find out how the Nazis managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass murders of the Holocaust; the experiment showed. Regarding obedience, Milgram said that "Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to; some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, it is only the man dwelling in isolation, not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others." A similar conclusion was reached in the Stanford prison experiment.
Although other fields have studied obedience, social psychology has been responsible for the advancement of research on obedience. It has been studied experimentally in several different ways. In one classical study, Stanley Milgram created a controversial yet replicated study. Like many other experiments in psychology, Milgram's setup involved deception of the participants. In the experiment, subjects were told they were going to take part in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. In reality, the experiment focuses on people's willingness to obey malevolent authority; each subject served as a teacher of associations between arbitrary pairs of words. After meeting the "teacher" at the beginning of the experiment, the "learner" sat in another room and could be heard, but not seen. Teachers were told to give the "learner" electric shocks of increasing severity for each wrong answer. If subjects questioned the procedure, the "researcher" would encourage them to continue. Subjects were told to ignore the agonized screams of the learner, his desire to be untied and stop the experiment, his pleas that his life was at risk and that he suffered from a heart condition.
The experiment, the "researcher" insisted, had to go on. The dependent variable in this experiment was the voltage amount of shocks administered; the other classical study on obedience was conducted at Stanford University during the 1970s. Phillip Zimbardo was the main psychologist responsible for the experiment. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, college age students were put into a pseudo prison environment in order to study the impacts of "social forces" on participants behavior. Unlike the Milgram study in which each participant underwent the same experimental conditions, here using random assignment half the participants were prison guards and the other half were prisoners; the experimental setting was made to physically resemble a prison while inducing "a psychological state of imprisonment". The Milgram study found that most participants would obey orders when obedience posed severe harm to others. With encouragement from a perceived authority figure, about two-thirds of the participants were willing to administer the highest level of shock to the learner.
This result was surprising to Milgram because he thought that "subjects have learned from childhood that it is a fundamental breach of moral conduct to hurt another person against his will". Milgram attempted to explain how ordinary people were capable of performing lethal acts against other human beings by suggesting that participants may have entered into an agentic state, where they allowed the authority figure to take responsibility for their own actions. Zimbardo obtained similar results as the guards in the study turned aggressive. Prisoners were hostile to and resented their guards; the cruelty of the "guards" and the consequent stress of the "prisoners," forced Zimbardo to terminate the experiment prematurely, after 6 days. The previous two studies influenced how modern psychologists think about obedience. Milgram's study in particular generated a large response from the psychology community. In a modern study, Jerry Burger replicated Milgram's method with a few alterations. Burger's method was identical to Milgram's except when the shocks reached 150 volts, participants decided whether or not they wanted to continue and the experiment ended.
To ensure the safety of the participants, Burger added a two-step screening process. In the modeled refusal condition, two confederates were used, where one confederate acted as the learner and the other was the teacher; the teacher stopped after going up to 90 volts, the participant was asked to continue where the confederate left off. This methodology was considered more ethical because many of the adverse psychological effects seen in previous studies' participants occurred after moving past 150 volts. Additionally, since Milgram's study only used men, Burger tried to determine if there were differences between genders in his study and randomly assigned equal numbers of men and women to the experimental conditions. Using data from his previous study, Burger probed participant's thoughts about obedience. Participants' comments from the previous study were coded for the number of times they mentioned "personal responsibility and the learner's well being"; the number of prods the participants used in the first experiment were measured.
Another study that use
The dictionary definition of sycophancy at Wiktionary
