We're looking at control in groups, and this next control issue is group conformity. The author refers to a study a study by Theodore Newcomb in which students political attitudes are followed throughout their tenure at the college. The students mainly come from wealthy conservative families, but the faculty at the college are mainly liberal.
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"Newcomb drew upon the concept of 'reference group' in describing the change of attitude from conservative to liberal by the majority of his subjects. A reference group is defined as the source of standards to which one refers in choosing what to value. If you recall the concept of the 'social comparison process,' the point was that people tend to choose their reference levels for symbolic or abstract actions by seeing what others generally do in similar circumstances. A person's reference group is defined as the most relevant source for the social comparison, because one wants to act like those with whom one identifies, not just anyone." (p. 178)
As we've seen before the reference group the mission seemed to have chosen for me was not a good choice, since I didn't see myself as a secretary. That is, I was taken on by the mission to be a secretary, but that didn't fit my professional training nor how I viewed myself. But, according to this text, use of reference groups is is effective for creating group conformity, although the study does not deal with intentionally created conformity, as in socialization. Still, it does seem like the mission probably did intend for the reference group they'd selected for me to be useful in furthering group conformity - that is my conformity to the group.
However, the text also says that "A person's reference group is defined as the most relevant source for the social comparison, because one wants to act like those with whom one identifies, not just anyone." (p. 178) I quote this again because I think it is significant. The mission assumed, it would appear, that I would want to act like the other secretaries. In fact, as it turned out, I don't think there was anyone I really wanted to act like. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that if I'd been given a more appropriate reference group I might have succumbed and been fully socialized into the group. But it didn't take me too long to be sort of on my guard, trying to figure out what was going on that I hadn't expected by way of group norms and functioning. So once I entered that watch and see mode then the mission responded to my non-response to their efforts to socialize me (e.g., via their pre-selected reference group). Then when the mission responded like they did I was repelled further into a self-defense mode and it just spiraled down from there. Once I'd realized that there was something strange (unexpected) going on in the mission at that point I'm not sure it was very likely that anyone in the mission could have been a good reference for me. Even if there was someone (or some group) that I could possibly have looked up to, the thought would then come in that that person was also part of this mess, so that would have thrown out any possibility of anyone at the mission being a reference for me.
I don't think I was exactly aware of this because I wasn't thinking so much about reference groups, although I knew I was supposed to learn from the other secretaries, especially one of them. But it's not like I understood that I was supposed to have a reference group but no one in the mission could be that for me because everyone would be a part of this stuff going on that I couldn't agree with, even if I didn't completely understand it. So, if reference groups were supposed to be focal points of new recruit socialization, there wasn't a chance in a blue moon I was going to make it. Once that downward spiral started, which was maybe a couple months after I'd arrived, there was no hope that I'd be integrated into the mission. I think the only way to salvage my relationship with the mission, at least from the standpoint of reference groups being central to socialization, would be if something would have happened to show me that I was wrong about my concerns about the mission. That never happened.
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"For example, if we are both members of a group having an identity including (let's say) an image as 'enlightened liberals,' and I perceive you acting in an 'illiberal' way, it disturbs my perception, and I get an error signal. My perception of the attributes of the group image is distorted, and I automatically begin corrective action; I might scold, censure, or criticize you, trying to get my error signal reduced. If none of that works, I might go on to try to kick you out of my group." (p. 178)
I had 2 years of "corrective action" by the mission, possibly with a few exceptions thrown in the mix. Only this wasn't an informal response to me, but a top-down action with the full force of the administration (which everyone parrots in a total institution).
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"Since a system concept is such a high-level variable, there are many different corrective actions possible. It is not hard to identify the corrective actions as implementing different principles: 'Don't disgrace the group'; 'That's not what we stand for'; 'Remember who we are.' If none of these corrective actions succeeds in reducing the disturbance of the group image, other principles are called upon: 'You're a heretic, a traitor, a rebel. Return to right thinking, or be excommunicated.'" (p. 178-179)
In my experience with the mission, there are at least as many nonverbal "corrective actions" as verbal ones. The sky's the limit. When you consider that the mission was a total institution with virtually no constraints on it (I already discussed possible constraints and virtually eliminated ever single one of them as having any efficacy vis a vis the mission), and to top it off a mission with military contacts... really, the sky's the limits.
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"Another psychologist, Stanley Milgram (1977, 1965, 1964), is noted for his series of disturbing studies of conformity to authority. His description of the origin of this work places it within the context of the present discussion. It is interesting enough to deserve reporting the story in some detail.
I was working for Asch in... 1959-1960 [and] thinking about his group pressure experiment... Could a group, I asked myself, induce a person to act with severity against another person? ... I envisioned a situation very much like Asch's experiment in which there would be a number of confederates and one naive subject [but] but the question would be to what degree an individual would follow along with the group [but, in looking for an experimental control, I transformed it into a study of] Just how far will a person go when an experimenter tells him to give increasingly severe shocks [to another experimental volunteer] ... I would like to call what happens to Asch's subjects 'conformity,' and I would like to call what happens in my experiment 'obedience.' ... in Asch's experiment, you're dealing basically with a process of which the end product is the homogenization of behavior... Obedience arises out of differentiation of social structure ... on person [has] a higher status. (Milgram, 1977, pp. 94-96)" (p. 179)
I hope you see where we're heading here. How far do you think the people in Vienna would go to obey their leader(s)? To what extent would they join in the "corrective actions" against me? These two studies are well-known and often cited, and as such they're pretty reputable. In Vienna the missionaries are isolated from their familiar surroundings, they're made to accept all-pervasive security measures, and authority is pretty much absolute. The question then arises, why mightn't they go along with "corrective actions" against me? What's to hold them back from falling in line? And what's the risk to them if they don't fall in line? But they've already swallowed the mission's logic hook-line-and-sinker, which is why they're socialized and I'm not, so how could they do anything but follow the leadership?
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That's the end of this section.
