‘DON’T LEAVE EXPERIMENTAL PAPERS LYING AROUND FREE-THINKERS’

The Astonisher has always had an unwritten policy that when making decisions that they should, as often as possible, be either left to sheer chance or never made at all. A decision delayed keeps ones mind busy and can’t hurt anybody unless you’re a surgeon.

I came to this conclusion a dozen or so years back when I was accidentally browsing through some papers that my ex-partner was reading then about ‘Conformity, Compliance and Acceptance.’ What caught my eye was some experimental data from tests applied to a different range of people to record their reactions under certain circumstances.

One of the tests showed that when giving electric shocks to a subject, the more distant or detached the subject the more severe the shocks could become before the person applying the treatment refused to go any further. The voltage applied was less severe when the subject was in the same room than if they were out of sight. So it was that the idea that our public servants, including politicians, don’t give a fuck about you or me is that they don’t have to come face-to-face with us and can apply as much pain as they want without consequence.

Obedience to instruction also varied depending on whether the person applying the shocks were on their own or in the presence of a ‘perceived’ superior authority. There was less compliance to instruction when it was received over a telephone. So if the Town Clerk is standing in front of you, with the power to make your life a fucking misery, then you are bound to do exactly as you are told.

Another test showed that people tend to conform to those around them, adopt the same corrupt and unethical practices and will even follow orders that under normal circumstances they would find morally repulsive. This might explain why large bureaucratic structures, with volumes of instructions on how one should act under different circumstances, will inevitably, and sometimes inadvertently force employees to follow certain procedures that may be an anathema to an individual acting alone. And so it in confrontations with local councils they will act immorally in favour of a council contractor regardless of the best interests of the ratepayers.

Other experiments showed that some people assisted in the consensus process of decision making either ‘because they didn’t want to upset their peers’ or ‘ wanted to be liked’. Extreme examples of this same phenomena can be applied to Hitler in WW2 Pol Pot in Cambodia and Australia on Nauru.

What breeds ‘obedience’? Physical and emotional distance from the ratepayer, closeness and legitimacy of authority, institutional authority by way of Acts and other instruments of control, the way the group is packaged and who is supporting who, and the liberating effect of group influence emanating from the Lunchroom all effect a persons responses.

Several experiments reveal that someone who punctures unanimity deflates its social power and observing someone else’s dissent, even if it is wrong, increases our own independence. So the Astonisher has become, in a small way, that instrument to debunk the bullshit that comes out of local council offices and other concrete-minded entities. As a result of this we hope that the readership will be more likely to make the right self-determining decisions if they feel someone is on their side.

Add to this the fact that people once publicly committed to a position, seldom yield to social pressure. Umpires and referees rarely reverse their initial judgments in footy matches, and neither do we. People conform based on desires to fulfill others’ expectations and often to gain acceptance. Conformity is greater when people respond before they can reflect. Conformity results from acceptance of evidence about reality. We conform because we want to be liked and approved, or we want to be right.

So I recommend, as I am often pulling myself up for not doing it, that if we want good things to happen or to give honest answers we need to consider who is around at the time, who holds the authority and is the balance of power between us and them equal?

Each of these tests showed, as it is applied against good practices in management, that real face-to-face involvement in decision making was most likely to create a more honest environment, more likely to happen, and thus lead to more positive outcomes.

If people don’t want to participate then we are at fault not them.