Academic Achievements
Stephen Reicher has proven himself in psychology with his numerous academic achievements. He has become fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Sciences. He is the vice president of ADRIPS and a consultant to Scientific American Mind. A former editor for the British Journal of Social Psychology and author of 9 books and countless articles. He has used his knowledge to advance psychology in the area of group behavior. This can be observed in his scientific works on the psychology of crowd dynamics, contesting the nature of conformity, and collective action and psychology.
The Psychology of Crowd Dynamics
In studies Reicher conducted on the challenge of crowd psychology…
Despite the power of conformity it is clear also that it still requires an individual to choose to follow and is not an automatic response. The obedience experiment by Milgram showed that blindly following orders will lead to a lessened sense of responsibility to the action, but underlying is that “participants could be led to construe [their actions] as service in the cause of goodness.” This leaves a large margin for error and many ways of justifying acts of evil. So how does one determine true righteousness in their actions and when conforming is for the better? It is an area that Reicher deems worthy of deeper insight and has furthered to explore with his understanding of collective…
We must first acknowledge the importance of studying the crowd to give light into how an individual has shaped through influence. Then it must also be considered what changes a person has made in order to conform to the surrounding social network. Lastly we have to monitor the internal conflict of personalities and evaluate the development of self through social interaction. All of these variables in crowd psychology will require more knowledge to fully understand and influence positive behavior/development.
We can summarize that a need to further study is evident if we have any desire to stop continuous development of negative behavior. As easy as it may sound not all people have the strength of will to stray from the social norm regardless of the positive or negative…
