Food #33: Experiments in Human Nature:
What Would You Do?
Karmic Tests Under Real Life Conditions
Blind Obedience [Stanley Milgram]:
How did an entire nature become its leader's willing executioners?
The answer is inborn blind obedience and abdication of responsibility.
Prison Experiment [Philip Zimbardo]:
How did military police sworn to uphold justice torture prisoners?
The power of the situation can turn good people into animals.
Group Think [Solomon Asch]:
Do we all go
along to get along? Groups can pressure us so much that we can start
disbelieving our own eyes as this experiment demonstrates!
Discrimination Labeling [Jane Elliott]:
How do labels of discrimination effect us? A school teacher's test
show that labels do more damage that would be readily believed.
Interpretation Paradox [Various]:
How do we interpret what others are trying to tell us? How we
interpret our environment can literally save or destroy our life.
Monkey Pay-Per-View [Mike Platt]:
What are we all hard wired to pay close attention to? What monkeys
will pay to see (and not to see) holds the key!
Halo Effect [Edward Thorndike]:
Are we influenced by an individual's outer appearance to judge them
more favorably than they deserve? It is the Halo Effect.
Inner/Outer Violence [Albert Bandura]:
Does exposure to media violence cause violent behavior or does it
give a safe outlet for it? Studies finally reveal the answer.
Sports Imagery [LV Clark]:
How do we improve
in any area of life? This famous "basketball experiment" proves that
mental conditioning is just as important as physical practice!
Being Instrument [WWYD]:
What would you do?
What we think we would do can only be known under actual real life
conditions. Would you help out someone in real need?
"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." (Quaker Proverb)
Throughout history, blind obedience to evil causes has been the cause
of most of the worst karma in the world like wars, terrorism, and
suicide bombing. Unfortunately, blind obedience seems to be inborn.
*
Tenth Level:
In 1975, there was a TV movie, "The Tenth Level",
starring William Shatner, Ossie Davis, and John Travolta. If you have
ever seen it, it is the kind you would never forget... and one that is
relevant in the post-9/11 world.
*
Milgram Experiment:
"The Tenth Level" was the dramatization of
experiments first conducted by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University
psychologist. He performed a "Behavioral Study of Obedience"
to better understand "blind" obedience.
*
Explaining the Holocaust:
Milgram really wanted to know:
"How had the Holocaust happened? Could it be that
Eichmann and all the accomplices in the Holocaust were just following Hitler's
orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"
So Milgram designed a series of experiments to answer
those questions. Although there were many variations, there was one basic
process.
*
How the Experiment Seemed:
The subject (S) is asked to participate
in an experiment to determine if pain can be used to improve memory. So an
official looking experimenter (E) orders the subject (S) to push levers that
are supposed to deliver painful electric shocks to another person who is
actually an actor (A).
*
How the Experiment Worked:
The real experiment is to see if the
subject (S) will continue to push levers that will inflict pain on the
actor (A). In reality, there were no electric shocks. The actor (A) went
into a booth separate from the subject (S). As the subject (S) pushed the
levers, they were actually triggering a tape recorder, which played
pre-recorded screams keyed for each shock level.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
When the actor (A) saw the shock
indicator cross into the lethal level, they started to bang on the wall
separating them from the subject (S). When it became lethal, the actor
(A) abruptly stopped screaming for help. Even though the subject (S)
hears the actor (A) cry out for mercy, many of them will continue to give
shocks despite actor's (A) pleas for mercy as long as the experimenter
(E) tells them that it is "their job to continue" with the experiment.
*
The Results:
Nearly 70% of the subjects (S) were willing to shock
the actor (A) to their death as long as the experimenter (E) was willing
to accept all the responsibility. That is how blind obedience works to
create the worst karma.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
(John Dalberg-Acton)
When power is absolute, only the most karmically evolved can resist
the power to abuse it.
*
How the Experiment Worked:
In 1971, Stanford University behaviorist
Philip Zimbardo recruited college students to participate in an experiment.
In this "game", students were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" and "guards"
and they were to play out these roles for two weeks within a simulated prison
on the campus.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
This experiment took an unexpected turn when
those playing "guards" became vicious and sadistic while those playing
"prisoners" became passive and extremely stressed from the "guards" abusive
treatment. This experiment was depicted in the movie "The Experiment"
starring Forest Whitaker (chief guard) and Adrien Brody (chief prisoner)
as in the picture above.
*
Power of the Situation:
The experiment had to be called off after
six days because the violence between the groups had escalated out of control.
The students in these groups were "ordinary people" chosen specifically
because they were physically and psychologically healthy and so considered
safe.
*
Warped Behavior:
Yet the power of the situation in the guard-prisoner
dynamic came to warp their "normal" constructive behavior into "abnormal"
destructive behavior. The power of this situation was played out in real
life in 2004 when US military police committed ongoing and "unthinkable" human
rights violations against prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison facility.
*
The Results:
What "The Experiment" teaches about the human
condition is that those who are less mature as Soul will let their egos
run wild. As Thomas Hobbes wrote, "the life of man in the state of nature
is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" because the ego will drive
one person to take advantage of another. Unfortunately, "The Experiment"
shows that Hobbes was right and how quickly a civilized person can turn
into a brute in the absence of civilization.
*
Existence of Karma:
This is why karma exists. Without causes
having effects, the universe would devolve into mass chaos. That is
where reincarnation comes in: those who have hurt another in one life
will reborn into another life where they will experience that hurt in
exact and precise degree. Yet, when you act as if God is always watching
and you always do what God expects, that is when you can become free of
the ill effects of the power of the situation.
"Policies are constraints on behavior. Constraints create
patterns of activity. Patterns can then be noticed." (Robert Hanssen, the worst
spy in American history) Group Think is a passion of mind behind some of the worst
karma in human history.
*
How the Experiment Seemed:
Needing money in college, I participated
in Solomon Asch's experiment in "Group Cognition" for $50. The test was
simple: were two pictures more like or more unlike one another? Everyone
who took the written test got a perfect score, myself included. Then there was
a verbal test about the same series of pictures. It should have been a
no-brainer. Right? Wrong! This test quickly degenerated into an episode
of "The Twilight Zone"...
*
How the Experiment Worked:
Imagine if you will... me sitting at
in the last place in a row among a group of students. Each person gave
their opinion of "Same/Different" picture verbally: I was last to speak.
At first, everyone agreed on the right answer. Then 20% of people gave
the wrong answer, then 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90% were wrong.
It never got to 100% because I kept on giving the correct answer. Finally,
everyone gave the wrong answer... except me. Just when the "Weird Factor"
was off the scale, all the students (except me) got on their feet and
started clapping. This made it worse for me!
*
How the Experiment Turned:
Apparently, I was the only one tested
who did not knuckle under to the "Group Think" pressure. Around the 50%
mark, most experimental subjects started following the group by giving
the wrong answer. No one, except me, had ever passed the 80% mark. The
point of the experiment was to understand the "Group Think" process in
an attempt to understand how ordinary German citizens could become
transformed into "Hitler's Willing Executioners".
*
The Awful Truth:
When asked why I did not follow the group, I
replied, "I thought I would not get the $50 if I answered incorrectly."
When asked what I thought about other students giving wrong answers, I
said that, "the drug problem at this school was worse than I thought..."
Fortunately, the other students chose to laugh rather than be insulted
(and I did apologize for my insensitive remark).
*
The Results:
Yet the learning from this experiment was an important
one: that only the slightest pressure from a group is needed for an
individual to detach from their truth. Unfortunately, going along to
get along can become deadly.
"Own it all!" (attributed to Adam Smith)
and
"Saying that you are moral because
you believe in a god is like saying you are an economist
because you play monopoly." (Robert W. Cox)
*
How the Experiment Seemed:
When the participants were recruited
for this experiment, it seemed that the goal was to see which
players could come up with the best strategies for winning.
Also, another goal was to see how individuals would react
to unfair rules (in the version where those existed).
How the Experiment Worked:
A pairs of strangers were invited to
play a Monopoly game where the playing field was not level.
One player was chosen to be rich and another one to be poor.
In one version ("unfair rules"), the "rich players" received
twice as much money as their opponent at the start. As
they played the game, the rich got two turns in a row while
the poor got only one turn. When each player passed "Go", the
rich collected $200 while their opponent only got $100.
In another version ("collusion"), the poor person would
intentionally make mistakes that would benefit the rich
player. The poor player would then bemoan their bad luck.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
The "rich" winners did not attribute
their success to the rigged rules or to the incompetence of
their opponents. Instead, the inevitable rich winners attributed
their wealthy result to their personal superiority. They
believed that they deserved their success in the game while
their opponents deserved to lose. Sadly, the winners had
no sympathy for the losers. Worse, at one point, some of
the rich players chose to use their power to systematically
destroy their poor opponent.
*
The Results:
This experiment was repeated with
varying demographics (such as pairs of the same gender,
of the opposite gender, of different ethnicities, and so on).
The results were always the same: the rich player became
progressively more aggressive and less charitable towards
their poor opponent. It helps to explain why the rich act
differently (not with charity or compassion) to those who
are not as abundant as they are.
"Oh, Great Spirit, keep me from ever judging a man
until I have walked a mile in his moccasins," (Proverb)
Karma teaches by experience for most
people only learn from what they live through and live with. Labels which
create discrimination are one way this happens.
*
Discrimination Kills:
Shortly after Martin Luther King was murdered
on April 1968, elementary school teacher, Jane Elliott of Riceville, Iowa,
conducted a now famous experiment in labeling. Her goal was to teach her
students what it was really like to suffer from discrimination by having
them experience it for themselves.
*
Black Like Me:
Elliot was inspired by John Howard Griffin's book,
"Black Like Me". This was the story of a white man who dyed his skin
brown and suffered discrimination while posing as a black man in the
South during the '50s.
*
How the Experiment Worked:
In Elliot's own words:
"Suppose we divided the class into blue-eyed and
brown-eyed people. Suppose that for the rest of today the blue-eyed people
became the inferior group. Then, tomorrow, we will reverse it so that the
brown-eyed children were inferior. Wouldn't that give us a better
understanding of what discrimination means?"
*
How the Experiment Turned:
Although the children knew what was coming, that
it was an experiment, and that eye color did not matter, they ALL were
effected by being LABELED and, as a result, discriminated against.
*
Day One:
On the first day, Elliot spent some time berating the
blue-eyed and explaining WHY the blue-eyed were inferior and the brown-eyed
were superior. Then Elliot gave everyone a test: the blue-eyes all scored
below the brown-eyes. Significantly, blue-eyes who were usually good students
scored below normal while brown-eyes who were usually poor students scored
above normal.
*
Day Two:
On the second day, Elliot spent some time berating the
brown-eyed and explaining WHY the brown-eyed were inferior and the blue-eyed
were superior. Then Elliot gave everyone a test: the brown-eyes all scored
below the blue-eyes. Significantly, brown-eyes who were usually good students
scored below normal while blue-eyes who were usually poor students scored
above normal.
*
The Results:
The LABELS we give ourselves and the discrimination
that flows from it have a profound influence on our lives. If we give
ourselves positive, empowering LABELS, we can outperform our personal best.
If we accept negative, disempowering LABELS, we will under perform.
Pure and simple!
"We don't see things the way they are, we see things
the way we are." (Talmud)
When there is not enough information to make a decision,
how do we do it anyway?
*
No Kill I:
Star Trek fans will be familiar with this "Interpretation
Paradox!" Are these words - "No Kill I" - a plea asking another not to kill
them? Are these words a promise saying they will not kill another? Or could
it be they are both? So how did Kirk and Spock figure out what to make of them?
A Vulcan mind meld, of course! For those lacking in this ability, they must
fill in the missing blanks with their experience and their judgment: the
Interpretation Paradox!
*
Pig! Cow!:
A man in a hot sports car is driving along a country road.
A woman in a run-of-the-mill car emerges from a blind curve in the opposite
direction. Her car careens wildly from side to side as she screams "Pig! Pig!"
The man, thinking she has made a nasty comment about him, shouts "Cow!" back
at her. Then he rounds that blind curve and smashes his car into a pig
blocking his lane. He realizes too late that she was trying to warn him of
a danger she had already faced. Had he interpreted her words as being helpful,
he could have saved his car and minor injuries. Instead, his negative
interpretation cost him both.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
In the Star Trek example, Kirk and Spock,
being diplomats (sort of) wanted to bridge the gap between two warring
parties. Their training and experience taught them to see the big picture
and to find ways to come to a peaceful solution. Since they were looking
through a positive lens, they could create a positive result. Compare this
to sports car man. No doubt others has teased him about his macho car and
his experience taught him that such comments were negative… and that is
how he interpreted them.
*
The Results:
In the Positive Interpretation (Star Trek example),
Kirk and Spock ignored the angry mob who had already judged their opponent
as guilty. They reserved judgment until they investigated matters further.
Compare this to the Negative Interpretation (sports car example). He made
an instant, snap judgment of the situation based on his limited experience.
This is the core of the "Interpretation
Paradox": some external
pressure (time more often than not) forces an individual to fill in the
blanks of a certain situation. They fill it in with their memory and
mentality. If that is positive,
good decisions are the usual result.
If that is negative,
tragedy is almost inevitable.
"As you believe, so shall you do." (Star Trek, "And the Children
Shall Lead")
Do you do as you believe? If you do not, you will experience
Cognitive
Dissonance.
*
Cognitive Dissonance Defined:
This is a concept from social psychology: cognitive
is the thinking of the mind while dissonance is inconsistency or conflict.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological conflict which comes from an
individual holding two or more incompatible beliefs simultaneously.
For example, an individual who smokes but is committed to being healthy
experiences mental discomfort with each cigarette that drives a nail
into their coffin and destroys the very health they value.
*
Cognitive Dissonance Study:
In 1951, Leon Festinger, devised
a set of theories about communication's social influences, which is
known as "Cognitive Dissonance". This was based on extensive studies
of human behavior and found that individuals are generally purposeful
decision makers who consciously strive for balance in their belief
systems relative to their actions.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
If an individual is presented with information
that is very inconsistent with their core beliefs, they will use
"Dissonance Reduction Strategies" to regain their internal equilibrium.
This theory states that dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable enough
to motivate individuals to change their beliefs or actions to achieve
internal consonance/congruence. It also states that, in a state of
cognitive dissonance, individuals will avoid and/or manipulate information
and situations that might increase their internal state of dissonance.
*
The Results - Example:
Take the case of an individual who refuses
to use a seat belt even though the law requires it and even if they know
it has saved lives of people they know. They can reduce their cognitive
dissonance either by 1) altering their behavior (using a seat belt) or
2) by seeking information that is consonant with their behavior (air bags
are safer than seat belts and so seat belts are not needed).
*
The Results - Applications:
Cognitive Dissonance theory is mainly
used to by researchers to understand attitude formation and change inside
settings of decision-making and problem-solving. They study how people
can be manipulated into adopting external behaviors so that they will
change their own internal attitudes.
"..if they (fans) love you that much without knowing you, they can
also hate you." (Marilyn Monroe)
Are we hard wired to admire celebrities? According to the "Monkey
Pay-Per-View" study, we are!
*
Monkey Study:
Duke University neurobiologist Mike Platt conducted
a study of the pictures that monkeys would "pay" to watch. The monkeys
got fruit juice as a reward for looking at images. The monkeys would accept
less juice when it was an image they wanted to see. Similarly, the monkeys
would have to get more juice to view images that they were uninterested in
seeing. This "pay per view" pattern gives insight into how animals are
hard wired.
*
Hard Wiring - Part 1:
The researchers found that monkeys would
give up a significant amount of juice ("paying") to see the hindquarters
of female monkeys. This was expected because the sex drive is an instinctive
part of animal behavior.
*
Hard Wiring - Part 2:
They also found that monkeys would also
pay to see the faces of superior/dominant individuals (the "alpha males")
in the group. This was also expected as an individual's survival was
dependent on their harmonious relationship to the group's leader.
Confirming this was that monkeys had to be "paid" to look at the faces
of those considered to be subordinates/submissives and so were not
important to their survival inside the group.
*
The Results - Celebrity Attention:
What "Monkey Pay-Per-View"
teaches about the human condition is that we all make judgments about
how to spend our attention. The more important we perceive the individual
to be in our life (and to our well being), the more we will pay attention
to them.
For example, the student may consider the school principal more worthy
of their attention than a classmate (because of his/her authority).
Since celebrities are considered to be among the most important individuals
in a society, we are all "hard wired" to pay more attention to them…
than to "regular" people.
*
The Results - Celebrity Worship:
This is why people end up worshipping celebrities.
Today's mass communication brings a handful of famous people to the
attention of multitudes of "ordinary" people. Since the famous are
considered to be important and since the ordinary can see and hear
them on a regular basis, the result is that unreal relationships are
formed between them.
This is why an "ordinary" person can become convinced that the "famous"
person (who has never even met them) has a real connection to them… when
that connection can only exist inside their mind.
"This would be an excellent match: for he was rich, and
she was handsome." (Jane Austen)
Does it really matter how you good looking and how successful
you are? Human seem to think so.
*
Halo Effect:
In 1920, Edward Thorndike coined the phrase "halo
effect" to describe how some people get treated better than others because
they possessed superior physical, mental, or emotional attributes. He
found that people generally see those who are good looking, wealthy,
intelligent, and/or successful, etc as being superior in their other
attributes as well. Whether or not it is true, we tend to put a halo
around them by believing they are also good in the ways that matter most
(that they are loving, kind, honest, ethical, moral, and trustworthy).
*
Halo Payoff:
This is why those who want to influence our opinions
pay big money to celebrities to endorse their viewpoint and/or products.
They know that people think if [celebrity with halo] thinks that [whatever]
is [great, good, or worthy], then it must be so, resulting in sales and
profits… whether it is true or not.
*
Halo Risk:
The problem is that those who have halos are not
always angels. Bad karma results when some of them, while their halo is
burning brightly, choose cash in on that fame knowing that they will be
cheating others. Of course, what goes around will come around and karma
will ensure that the scales are balanced between those cheaters with
halos and those who they have cheated, defrauded, or have otherwise
harmed because of the Halo Effect.
*
The Results - Halo Purpose:
The whole karmic point of the halos is to teach us
all to look beyond them. There is not a saint without a past or a sinner
without a future… and all are equal in the eyes of God. Fame does not make
someone better, it only makes them more well known. Only the ego believes
that the pretty face, the big bank account, the razor sharp intelligence
are all that matters. What really matters is the constant evolution and
perfection of Soul... and not a temporary halo.
*
Beating the Halo Effect:
Visualizing an individual doing normal,
everyday things (and yes, all the rich and famous do their share of these
things) helps to reduce the Halo Effect. Seeing that you are the equal
of all those who you admire for their special qualities will tell you
that the Halo Effect is gone.
"An eye for an eye will only make the whole
world blind." (Gandhi)
Does exposure to media violence cause violent
behavior or does it give a safe outlet for it?
*
Cause of Aggression:
In 1961, Albert Bandura conducted his
"Bobo Doll Experiment" to better understand how social learning works.
One goal was to determine if violence was inherent inside the individual
(via genetics) or if it was learned (via the environment). Another was
to determine if aggressive behavior could be learned by children simply
by them viewing violent images and behavior (like those that have become
much more common in the media).
*
Bobo Experiment:
Boys and girls from the Stanford University
Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old were its subjects. They
watched a male or a female model behaving aggressively towards
a toy called a 'Bobo doll'. The adults attacked the Bobo doll in a
distinctive manner. In some cases, the role models used a hammer while
in others they threw the doll in the air and shouted "Pow! Boom!".
*
The Results:
After viewing adult role models behaving badly,
the children were left alone in a room filled with toys, including the
doll. Just after seeing their bad behavior many of the children imitated
the behavior of the adult role models by behaving violently toward the
doll. Some children shouted "Pow! Boom!" while others used the hammer
on the doll in the same way that the adults had done.
*
Replicated Studies:
Since Bandura's study, other behavioral
researchers have confirmed his findings. The evidence is mounting that
adults (who were heavy viewers of violent programs as children) are
more likely to be aggressive against others when offended and to commit
domestic violence and other crimes.
*
Karmic Learning:
While we are young and inexperienced as Soul,
we learn as children by copying the behavior of the adult role models
who are a constant presence in our lives. When we are more mature as
Soul, our role models have little or no influence over us, whether we
are children or adults. Learning from good and bad role models is how
we learn what it and is not like love… so that we can progress in our
karmic learning and evolution.
"Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb the highest
mountain in the world, Mount Everest, said it felt exactly the same way it
had felt during each of his previous summits. Hillary explained that he had
already successfully scaled Everest many times in his mind."
*
Sports Imagery:
Combining physical training, mental imagery, and
emotional control can significantly improve an individual's progress in
any sport! This has been proven: the following "Basketball Experiment"
has been repeated in many countries by various researchers in different
sports: all with the same results!
*
How the Experiment Seemed:
L. V. Clark of Wayne State University
was the first to conduct an experiment to test the power of imagery in
sports. [For those who want to look it up: Clark LV. "Effect of mental
practice on the development of a certain motor skill." Research Quarterly,
v31 n4 (Dec 1960):560-569]
*
How the Experiment Worked:
Clark studied three groups of high school
basketball players over a two week period. The first group did nothing extra
to improve their skills (only following their usual routine). The second
group put in extra practice time by shooting many more free-throws than in
their usual routine. The third group put in extra practice time but only
by imagining (visualizing) making perfect free-throw shots but not by actually
doing "extra, real" physical practice.
*
How the Experiment Turned:
As expected, the first group (the "do-nothings")
performed at the same level as they had done at the start of the experiment. As
expected, the second group (the "physical practicers") improved their free-throw
skills by a full 24% because the extra practice time made the difference. What
was completely unexpected was that the third group (the "mental practicers")
improved their free-throw skills by a full 23%! In the years following Clark's
1960 original experiment, similar results were produced by other research
studies/teams.
*
About the Results:
The bottom line is that if we want to improve
our outer physical skills, we must also improve our mental/emotional visions.
Those who consistently improved their skills the most were those who successfully
combined physical with mental and emotional practice. Here is how they did it!
Success with "Sports Imagery" is a three part formula.
One,
athletes must put in the time physically practicing their sport
so that the body can automatically respond to the mind's commands.
Two,
athletes must put in the time mentally practicing their sport
so that the mind can get the maximum possible results out of the body.
Three,
athletes must put in the time emotionally practicing their
sport by cultivating inner calmness so that the body and mind can realize
their greatest potential by efficiently focusing all energy on winning.
"If you are only doing PHYSICAL practice, then you are only doing
ONE-THIRD of the work needed to succeed. For how to do
the the MENTAL and EMOTIONAL work to raise your game to the next level,
click here.
"Those who think of themselves as an outcome engineers are
manipulators." (Anonymous)
Have you been pressured into doing what you do not want to do?
It may be the Foot-in-the-Door.
*
Thin End of the Wedge:
Have you ever asked you to sign a petition
for a worthy cause? And if you did, were you later asked to donate money
to the cause? And if you donated, were you then asked then asked to
volunteer? If so, especially if you are uncomfortable, you have experienced
the "Foot-in-the-Door" technique.
*
Trading Down:
Have you ever refused to do a large favor and
later agreed to a lesser one out of guilt? For example, if you were
asked for a big donation, refused, felt bad, and later felt guilty
enough to make a smaller donation. If so, especially if you are
uncomfortable, you have experienced the "Foot-in-the-Door" technique.
*
Creeping Commitment:
If you have received "just one little favor"
from someone else, it is likely the "Foot-in-the-Door" technique was present.
This is a favorite tactic of marketers and sales-people. In theory, when
a person gets a small favor, like a free but valuable item, they feel some
commitment to the person giving it and that often ultimately results in
a financial transaction. It is like the free item is paid for not with
money now… but with money later.
*
The Results - Creating Obligation:
If you have experienced the
"Foot-in-the-Door" technique in any of these forms, you will notice the
one thing they all have in common. This is an unfair creation of obligation
where none exists. The person, who pushes you with the "thin end of the
wedge", gets you to "trade down", or draws you into a "creeping commitment",
is trying to manipulate you into doing something you really do not want
to do in the first place.
*
Fighting Manipulation:
The key to fighting manipulation created
by the "Foot-in-the-Door" technique… is to pay attention to how you are
feeling. If you are feeling uncomfortable, guilty, ashamed, or other
negative emotions, then this is your inner guidance warning you that you
are being manipulated against your will.
*
Just Say No:
So many people fall victim to this technique because
they have difficulty with saying "No" and refusing others. Saying "No"
slams the door on the "Foot-in-the-Door" technique. Favors, donations,
and the like should be done with a cheerful heart and a clear mind…
instead of with feet caught in the door.
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there
is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is
doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood, as to
understand; not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that
we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we
awake to eternal life." (Francis of Assisi)
*
Being Instrument:
If you are wondering if you should do something,
you may have been placed there at that time because you need to do just that.
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How the Experiment Seemed:
A major television network conducted
an experiment. Would anyone come to the aid of a woman who was being
verbally abused by what appeared to be her romantic partner? To answer
this question, they hired actors to simulate having an argument (that
stopped just short of physical violence) in a public park. To the surprise
of the actors and the TV crew, only a few people stopped to view the
argument and even fewer made an attempt to help the woman. Yet there were
those who did risk themselves to offer assistance.
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How the Experiment Worked:
What would you do [WWYD] in this situation? I
know what I would do because I did it... in real life. Two people were
arguing. The man was beating the woman with his fists. I took my book-bag
and threw it against the attacker. Once that man hit the ground, I got
my book-bag and grabbed the woman who had been attacked. We ran away.
Fortunately, I knew the area better than the man did so we got away from
her "boyfriend"/attacker.
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How the Experiment Turned:
Later, I was asked by the woman I had
helped why I had done so. She explained that plenty of adults had passed
them by without lifting a finger... and she was stunned that "a child"
(teenager) would intervene to help her. I just looked at her and I did not
know what to say. Only later did I realize I was put in that situation
because I was meant to help the poor woman get away from her abusive
boyfriend before he seriously injured her.
*
The Results:
Helping others when you can offer assistance is
what it means to be an instrument of God. When you are put into a situation
where you know that you can help and you decide to help, you are being
used as an instrument of God to bring more of whatever is needed at that
time and place. When you choose to act as that "being instrument", know
that God will always protect you.
"One can begin to reshape the landscape with a single
flower." (Star Trek, Spock)
Can one person make a difference in a sinkhole of evil?
Yes, the world has been changed by individuals.
*
Majority Does Not Always Win:
These studies of human behavior
seem to show that human beings tend to go along with the crowd. Yet
other studies have shown that the minority can influence the majority,
especially when the minority consistently holds "fair" and moderate
viewpoints. Often this "minority report" will inspire others to
question, and perhaps even challenge, the majority viewpoint.
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Minority Report:
In the
"Milgram Obedience"
study, when one participant refused to progress with the shocks, the
others also refused to cooperate. In the
"Asch Group Think"
study, when just one person ate disagreed with the
majority's wrong judgment, it helped the others to resist the "group
think" effect.
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Moral Authority:
Why the "Minority Report" works… is that it
appeals to moral authority, usually it is religious. Christians will
be swayed when an appeal is made to the need to "love thy neighbor as
thyself". Buddhists will be swayed when the appeal is made to the need
for loving kindness. Confucianists will be swayed when the appeal is
made to the need for right thinking and correct behavior.
*
Personal Authority:
Why the "Minority Report" works… is that
it appeals to personal authority of one who is revered by others.
Although this is usually religious (as in "What would Jesus Do?), this
kind of authority is normally associated with celebrity. When movie
stars, athletes, businessman, law enforcement and other famous people
support a particular cause, when it is not endorsed by the majority,
they can be highly effective in promoting it.
*
Action Authority:
Why the "Minority Report" works… is that
ideas put into action can inspire others. Those who open help facilities
in depressed areas bring not only physical assistance (food, clothes,
shelter, medicine, and so on)… they bring hope. When people see others
changing things for the better, they shift their thinking. Today what
is majority thinking was once the "minority report" in the past… that
is how civilization moves forward.
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