Weekly Blog; Social Thinking

The social positions and the roles that come with them. The Philip Zimbardo experiment definitely shows how this can go bad. For those who don't know what this is it is an experiment on role taking and how it effects the behavior of people. Colleagues of Stanford volunteered. Zimbardo randomly selected each man to either be a guard or a prisoner. The experiment got so serious that they had to end it early. The boundary between the role and the person was erased! The guards turned into brutal guards who took advantage of their power and the prisoners had to be released because of the oncoming stress and anxiety.
This proves that roles of your social positions completely influences your behavior. I can honestly say that this has happened to me. I am a lifeguard at the Tundra Lodge and a lifeguard runs the ropes of the pool and even has the power to revoke the passes into that pool. I am completely different when I am a lifeguard and trying to enforce rules than I am as a friend or a student. I remember I kicked a boy out of one of the pools because he swore at me. It made me angry and I kicked him out of the pool, in turn, wasting his money on the water park. As a worker I also am timid to my managers and do what they say. When I am with my friends that doesn't really happen. I say what is on my mind, I do what I do, and I am who I am. I don't take their orders neither do they order me to say clean the toilets. I also think that the environment in which this role is and social positions. If I grew to know my friends as orderly maybe I would act different in order to fit in. Or maybe I would have moved on to different friends. Depends on the role that is required of my social positions.