What is social control?
Psychological knowledge allows people to change and influence the behaviours of others. This is overt and positive and can occur even if we are unaware that we are doing it. This can be used in a positive way if the knowledge is used to help people that are experiencing psychological problems to overcome them. However this becomes an issue if it is used in a negative way such as trying to manipulate someone or change their mind for your gain.
what is informational power?
Informational power involves selectively sharing information/data in order to gain control.
What is legitimate power?
Legitimate power is the idea that power can be legitimated with setting, uniform etc
What is expert power?
Using expertise to control people e.g., qualifications and experience. (Application to therapies being directive)
What is reward power?
Have the authority to reward certain behaviours.
What is coercive power?
Position of power to give out punishments.
What is reference power?
As a role model, they have power to persuade people to behave a certain way (peer pressure).
What is social control in Social (negative)?
research on obedience can be used to control people. e.g., the military could use such psychological knowledge to train soldiers to be unquestioningly obedient.
For example they already do this with agency theory and moral strain as binding factors by using euphemisms)
Milgram (1963) demonstrated that authority figures can elicit control over others to commit actions they may not normally do, leading to individuals being controlled by those in power.
How can social control be positive in social?
However, social control can be positive as well. research into obedience can be used to train people to avoid blind obedience. e.g., nurses can be trained to question doctor’s orders if they think it may cause the patient harm.
- E.g. Rank and Jacobson because 16/18 of the nurses didn’t follow the orders of the doctor who asked them to administer an overdose (desire them having expert control)
- Understanding factors affecting obedience can help give insight into how to prevent unacceptable control of others.
- Social structures are hierarchical to promote harmony and an organised society, suggesting we have evolved a predisposition towards control and obedience for the benefit of survival.
Sherif (1954/1961) found that the use of superordinate goals can help groups in conflict work together and reduce out-group hostility where they feel superior to the other group.
What is social control in Sherif?
- How prejudice might occur and how it might be resolved can be linked to issues of social control
- Controlling prejudice can help in society as it can help avoid violence that might come from hostility
- Superordinate goals can control people in society
What is social control in Sherif? (negative)
- Sherif used his expert power to make the boys complete competitions against each other and therefore influences and controlled the prejudice behaviour as he make it happen in the first place
- Shows how someone could be influenced into having prejudice views
What is social control in cognitive (negative)?
- Social control could be used negatively in cognitive by making someone remember something particularly by influencing their schema
- For example with post event information and discussion you could make someone believe that something is true even when it isn’t
- Expert power/informational power
What is social control in cognitive (positive)
- Can be used to help with memory techniques for those that suffer with Alzheimer’s
- For example cognitive stimulation uses expert power but is advantageous because by getting patients to remember their older memories this could create links to their new memories
What is social control in Biological (negative)?
- Biological research can be used to legitimise the social control of minority out-groups, such as criminals.
(this is because some of them have brain damage and therefore it is said that they are predetermined to be criminal are therefore need to be controlled) - Some biological explanations see behaviour as pre-determined, categorising individuals as inherently different making them more susceptible to being controlled by others (expert power)
- Raine (1997) found differences in the brains of murderers which could be used to justify the screening of individuals to find out if they are more likely to become criminals than other members of society. (expert power)
What is social control in biological (positive)?
- Drugs to treat sex offenders by reducing levels of male hormones (Depo-provera)
- Research into aggression is social control as brain scans are used for genetic testing
- Biological psychology has contributed to drug-based treatments for substance misuse which help an individual control addiction.
What is social control in Raine (negative)?
- Raine (1997) found differences in the brains of murderers which could be used to justify the screening of individuals to find out if they are more likely to become criminals than other members of society. (expert power)
- Raine’s study takes place in a lab and used scans, which would have made it seem as a serious and professional environment. In addition, the researchers might have been wearing lab coats which would have made them look more official and therefore given them more perceived power (legitimate power)
- There are instances of social control in Raine’s study as the professional environment could be intimidating for the participants and therefore might have an impact on their aggression
- Raine used prisoners so they might have felt that, because they were already being held somewhere probably against their will, they also couldn’t choose to withdraw from the experiment. Therefore this shows that the researchers might have used their power so that the participants felt that they couldn’t exercise their right to withdraw.
What is social control in Raine (positive) ?
- Brain regions relating to violence can be easily controlled
- Changing someone’s brain structure is unlikely in society, but neurotransmitter functioning can be altered
- Therefore this expert power can be used to help get treatments and therefore aid society
What is social control in learning (negative)?
- Might be able to classically condition a fear within someone if you hold expert power e.g. a phobia
- With Watson and Rayner we have seen that it is possible to classically condition a fear in a human and they did it using their expert power
- Token economy programmes (TEPs) are used in mental health institutions, schools and prisons to control behaviour. In mental health institutions patients are rewarded for more adaptive behaviour. e.g. anorexic patients are given tokens if they eat well or gain a certain amount of weight each week and these tokens can be exchanged for leisure time or outings. However, if a TEP is the only therapy used, it only serves to control their behaviour rather than change it. TEPs may only change behaviour in the short term and learnt behaviour doesn’t transfer easily to the outside world especially if the underlying causes of the disorder have not been dealt with.
- Rewards and punishments are used in society to regulate behaviour - we see this in schools, with prisons and in mental institutes
We even see this with store cards where we leave with points and come back in order to get a reward - we are being controlled everywhere
What is social control in learning (positive)
- Used positively to help an individual overcome a fear that they have by instead trying to condition a response of relaxation, as seen in systematic desensitisation. This will dramatically improve their quality of life and therefore this shows that classical conditioning can be positive (information and expert power)
- Systematic desensitisation is also not directive and therefore it is not social control and therefore it is beneficial to society
What is social control in Watson and Rayner? (negative)
- Watson and Rayner showed that it is possible to classically condition someone to think the way that you want them to think and therefore informational power could be used in a negative way to manipulate someone by conditioning a fear response in order to make them fear something of your choosing
- As they were researchers his mother might have felt that, due to their expert power, they knew what they were doing. She might have not felt that she could question them and withdraw her child as they had the experience and qualifications in this area. Furthermore she might have felt intimidated by the researchers as little Albert was the only participant so she might have felt that it would ruin the experiment if she withdrew him
What is social control in Watson and Rayner? (positive)
- The treatment that came out of Watson and Rayner can be used positively in society
- Used positively to help an individual overcome a fear that they have by instead trying to condition a response of relaxation, as seen in systematic desensitisation. This will dramatically improve their quality of life and therefore this shows that classical conditioning can be positive (information and expert power)
- Systematic desensitisation is also not directive and therefore it is not social control and therefore it is beneficial to society
