Term Paper On Blacklisting

Conformity studies were carried out by Asch to find out how individuals make their decisions when in a group of individuals. In this study, individuals who did not belong to a certain group were put together with another group of people. All these individuals were then provided with lines of different length and each was required to choose the longest and shortest of the lines. When the new subjects in this study came across a group of other people, they were convinced to discard their own judgment about the length of the lines and instead adopt the position of the group members. The conclusion was that a group of individuals has the ability to influence other people.
The reason why these subjects rejected their true decision is that they wanted to avoid being rejected socially by the majority. However, the study show that when the people were given a partner who was willing to say the truth, a greater number of people were willing to reject the group influence and present their own judgment. Generally, having a partner helps to reduce group conformity.
This study can help in explaining blacklisting. The reason why blacklisting was made to certain individuals is that the United States government thought that these individuals would influence other people hence spreading communism which was not their ideology. They were aware that if one individual supported the ideal; some more would be willing to accept it so that they are not rejected by that individual. To avoid this, the government encouraged blacklisting individuals with such ideologies. In addition, having additional employee who supports communism meant that more people in the organization would be willing to come up and support communism. To avoid this, blacklisting was necessary.
Validity effect study was conducted by Arkes to find out the effect of repeating statements for a long time. The subjects under study were required to read certain statements several times. After two weeks, the subjects were required to state whether certain statements were true or false. Statements that were a mixture of those that were read several times before and some other new statements were provided and the subjects were required to state whether the statements are true or false. Statements that were repeated several times before were identified as true even though they were false. It was concluded that repetition of statements several times affects the validity of the statements.
When statements are repeated, people eventually come to like these statements. The research identified that even though people have knowledge in certain areas, they can eventually be confused by wrong statements that are repeated to them from time to time. Repetition leads to association of the statements to particular individuals.
Validity effect study concludes that employees with certain beliefs are likely to keep repeating such beliefs to their fellow employees. Repetition of the statements for a long period makes the other employees to take the statement to be valid even though they are invalid. Blacklisting was necessary to ensure that those with communist ideologies did not keep repeating them to other employees which would make other employees to take such beliefs to be valid.
Just world hypothesis is a concept that implies that people get a punishment for their bad actions and rewards for their good actions. The concept further states that there is a certain power that always exists to reward and punish people. According to the concept, it becomes important to take actions whenever it is felt that there is injustice. This helps correct the situation. Whenever individuals do something that they consider an injustice, they find ways of justifying their acts. The concept also asserts that the actions of individuals can help predict the consequences. In this regard, the consequences of trying to spread communism in United States could be predicted. This is because such individuals expected to be blacklisted. Blacklisting can be said to be a punishment for those who did not obey certain ideas. Being retained in jobs can be viewed as a reward for those who rejected communism.
Self serving bias is a concept that explains that people associate their successes to their individual’s efforts. On the other hand, such people associate their failures to factors behold their control. An example is where students claim to have worked very hard during a certain session just because they have performed well during that period. When such individuals fail their test, they blame the examiners. Failing driving tests for example makes individuals blame their examiners. This makes such people have a higher self esteem. This usually happens to people who like being associated with success too much.
Organizations that blacklisted certain employees claimed that these employees were the cause of poor performance of the organization. It means that employees with communism ideologies influenced others to perform poorly in their duties. The major aim of doing this is to prove to the public that there is an external source of failure.
Psychology is very important in describing change in behavior of individual. In the first place, psychology helps to predict the behavior of an individual. It describes factors that influence change in behavior of an individual. Learning these factors can then help the psychologist to predict change. Psychology also helps to describe measures that can help to control a certain behavior. Considering that there are desired behaviors in a society, psychology is important in describing measures that can be taken to control unacceptable behaviors in the society. This initiates change in behavior of individuals. Psychology specifically recommends incentives as a way of facilitating behavior change. An example is where people who behave in a particular way in the working environment are rewarded. When other employees realize this, they copy this good behavior so that they can also receive rewards. This brings about change in the working environment. Punishment can also bring about change according to psychologist. When people are punished for their unacceptable behaviors, they engage in behaviors that are preferred in the society and consequently, the final product is change. It can therefore be concluded that psychology is effective in describing change in an organization.