The assigned readings for tomorrow’s class truly led me to question the degree of my own free will and free thinking. Goethals and Allison did this by explaining how our internal associations can often dominate our perceptions of others. This often causes us to have certain opinions/views on others mainly because of the position they hold, or group they belong to. One example that they briefly mention that I remember discussing in other classes is that of the election of Warren G. Harding, who embodies stereotypical leadership qualities. His election is believed to have been guaranteed by his physical features, in a time when safe and sane policy could not be undervalued. His victory was, very much so, not what was best for the country, yet his assuming of office strangely made people comfortable. This exemplifies why we need to be better at identifying and studying more typical biases that humans have. If we can see where the human mind fails to be rational, we can supplement our decisions with a dose of reason.
The Stanford prison experiment further illustrates the idea of Goethals and Allison. This famous study assigned people to be either prisoners or guards, and recorded the degree to which people played their roles. The extreme nature of this experiments results reveals a great deal about how our associations affect our behavior. This has major implications for how we should treat people. If all it takes for one to believe they are authoritative is to grant authority, and all it takes to be powerless is to be assigned to such a role, then we ought to be more careful with how we classify people. Based on this study, there is good reason to believe that individuals will be more successful and less apathetic in life if they are simple, somehow, led to believe that they are capable of such agency. Our human psyche deserves a great deal of attention when studying leadership, as it is clear that perception is not just the product of reasoned viewing. With greater attention to this, maybe some day we will size up to the elephants we all ride.
I completely agree, when I was reading I also thought about how some of the things our brains do according to Goethals and Alison are things that are not what is best for us in the end. I think that we need to figure out a way to combat these things so we do not end up with a safe looking option rather than the best option.
Your example of Harding was interesting because it made me think of the recent Von Rueden piece we read about evolutionary instinct and how we tend to favor leaders who are physically large in times of uncertainty. I think where we learn from being or making irrational decisions is a lot through trail and error. If we think we are acting rationally, we usually won’t change our action until there is a negative outcome.
I appreciate your hopefulness about diving deeper into understanding people’s biases in order to make logical decisions. This reminds me of a class discussion on charisma I had in my LDST 102 class. We read an article explaining that examinations of charisma versus actual leadership qualifications (i.e., experience, skill, policies) can lead to blind following in political elections. Even if people knew another candidate was better on paper, they would choose the more charismatic, charming candidate. Their emotions would (and do) outweigh logic. I don’t know how we solve this.
Your first sentence really intrigued me, as it relates to a scientific theory that free will does not exist. The idea is that everything we do is motivated by our psychology, which can be explained by chemical processes in the brain. So, we don’t necessarily have free will, because we act based on our thoughts, which we don’t actually control. This raises a lot of interesting questions, like do we actually make up our mind about things or is it just the result of chemical reactions in the brain? Are humans inherently hardwired to be cruel to each other when given the chance? The Stanford Prison Experiment would suggest yes.
Something that is particularly annoying about the Stanford Prison Experiment is that at the end of it all they still don’t have a solution for how to counter it. The researchers clearly reveal there’s a problem but we can’t simply leave it at that. Other studies suggest responsibility is key but how much of an impact it would have is unknown.