In today's America, individualism is at the heart of American culture. In the United States, the ideal is that everyone can make their own decisions freely. We teach that individualism gives you the freedom to chart your path, to make your own choices based on your morality, as well as the responsibility to personally accept the consequences of your actions. From the moment a newborn comes home from the hospital, every achievement is celebrated and rewarded. Throughout the years of development, every success is celebrated and encouraged, while every misstep is punished and ostracized. The education system praises students who take the initiative to raise their hands, question and confront problems, while continually pointing out the people behind their textbooks to avoid conflict. Ultimately, trying to break a person out of their collectivist behavior, teaching students that the more independent they are, the better off they will be in life. From cradle to college, it's no surprise that conflicts can arise when parents try to impose their rules on a child being taught to be independent. However, children know that they must obey their parents because they have higher authority. Throughout our lives, we continually walk a line that separates autonomy and authority, meant to find common ground. When people see uniforms and regalia, hear an authoritative and confident voice, or discern that someone is part of a larger society, one may become more willing to participate in what they teach because they have gained respect from society's point of view. Furthermore, when there are situations of unjust ideology and authoritative figures intervene to tell us something that goes against our morals, it is more than likely that some people will comply with the instructions, even if the results could end up hurting another person. May we live in a country that creates similar groups rather than actual individuals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In order to live in a stable society that preserves individuality, a balance between obedience and defiance is necessary. Throughout history, we have encouraged people to think outside the box and be their own person. However, it seems we have created a culture more inclined to blindly follow the crowd rather than stand out from the crowd. For this reason, one must ask to what extent a society can be obedient without losing its individuality? Where does individuality begin and obedience end? With this in mind, numerous experiments carried out show us what happens when identity is extinguished by the blind obedience of individuals towards those in a state of power. Compliance is harmful when it can cause physical or mental distress. If one is responsible for causing pain to another person, rebellion in the form of insubordination is the choice to make. Additionally, if one follows the task and causes pain to another person, that person loses their individuality and ability to choose. We have been socialized to follow the orders of authority, and too often we act out of habit. Of course, we must cooperate and comply where appropriate and fair, but we must also challenge ourselves. As individuals, we should automatically feel the need to ask questions because we know that our actions cannot be blamed on anyone else. Behaviors toward others define racehuman. Causing harm to others simply because someone orders it is not a reason to follow through. If one has the decision to follow orders or assert their individuality, the conclusion should be theirs and the consequences should be theirs, the decision should be theirs. Obedience to authority is necessary for the success of most human groups and organizations. To successfully participate in culture, people must conform and give up some individual freedom and take on new responsibilities. As there would be no benefit to living in a culture where most, if not all, systematically put self-interest ahead of common goals. Behaving according to socially accepted conventions and norms for the common good of all is entirely rational and essential to human life. However, even if conformity to authority exists, we don't really know who the absolute authority is. Society cannot issue direct orders or commands, but authority figures can, with the words of authority often acting as the voice of culture. Authority figures help organize and direct the group's operations in order to live a more organized life overall. However, we return to the fine line between autonomy and authority. Unlike agreement or conformity within society, obedience is publicly judged as habitual and constitutes a defined and superior form of social influence. People fully believe in the legitimacy of authority, as opposed to more voluntary acts that take into account societal influences. Although obedience shares common aspects with other forms of social power, the unconscious reasons why people feel obligated to be obedient require a different approach in its explanation. And, time and time again, we are undoubtedly shown the dangers of obedience. However, the reason why people blindly accept authority cannot simply be reduced to the influence of social norms, because for obedience to occur it is necessary to first identify the figure of the authority and recognize it as a legitimate power. Now we obey authority because it is an integral part of society, provides social organization and regulation of relationships, and it is a social norm to obey a higher power. However, we are still taught to think for ourselves and decide whether an authority is legitimate and appropriate in the situation before acting on ordered tasks. Even in cases where we do not obey authority, we fear the possible consequences. Although obedience and group processes share the desire to maintain balance and cohesion between relationships, the dynamic of hierarchy with an authority-subject relationship makes the type of social influence much more overt, unintentional and compelling of the exterior. Ostracism is a universally applied socialization tactic. control. Within the penal system, at home or in the nation's schools, the use of ostracism is used to gain control of the masses (Riva et al. 209). When we think of obedience to authority, we often think of the famous Stanley Milgram. He conducted an experiment focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal morality. As participants were asked to administer shocks to a stranger on the other side of a partition, they began to hear pleas and cries of anguish from the stranger. However, the subjects were told to continue and still administered what they thought were electric shocks to reluctant strangers. In analyzing the results of his work, Milgram made thefollowing observations: Ordinary people, simply by doing their job and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents of a terrible process of destruction. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work have become blatantly evident and they have been asked to perform actions inconsistent with basic standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources to resist authority. . Milgram's work on obedience and authority was groundbreaking, and his research left a lasting legacy in the field of psychology on why people follow orders. Every day we are faced with following unwritten rules, and there are certain circumstances in which we find ourselves straying from these rules because we are given independence. For example, in schools, many teachers find that their absence from class instantly leads to a change in student behavior. Indeed, from a young age, we have been raised to view teachers as a legitimate authority figure – and in the majority of cases, we will obey them. However, when the notable absence of teacher is apparent, “unspoken” rules (for example, no cell phones) are discarded. People perceive legitimate authority when they assume that a person holds a high-ranking position and therefore has greater expertise and a right to exercise power in their domain. When a substitute teacher is assigned to a class, the class automatically looks down on them because we think they don't deserve to be a permanent teacher. They too feel the pressure of staying only one day in a classroom and may even comply with what students say despite the instructions given to them. Indeed, our behavior is motivated by the desire to be appreciated by all actors in the system. Substitutes often refrain from setting goals or enforcing personal rules in order to avoid ridicule or humiliation from others. Although compliance and obedience both involve the target agreeing to the desired request by first preparing them to agree to a modest request, the behavior or action may not reflect the beliefs, opinions and the values ​​of an individual. Shared is the way in which obedience and compliance involve a subject's agreement with the request. The only difference is that while obedience is a command, compliance presents a less aggressive form of demand. For fear of being labeled a social outcast, an individual will follow the crowd rather than stray when found in unfamiliar situations. These attempts to follow the crowd and fit in result in affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Just as we have moral inhibitions that develop to protect us from feeling guilty about the hurts we have caused. Through the process of authorization, routinization, and dehumanization, people allow themselves to see their victims as numbers rather than as human beings. The only way people can justify what is done to these harmless people is to believe that they are subhuman and deserve to be kicked out of society. Although obedience often curbs violence, it also promotes violence by allowing aggressors to blame the authority figure giving the orders for their actions and avoid moral distress by saying, "I wasn't doing anything." than follow orders.” If someone feels they have less responsibility in a situation, they will be more likely to obey others without even thinking, because they are not responsible for their own actions..