I work at a fine dining restaurant that just opened up in Georgetown and our main goal of the restaurant is superb service. When the restaurant (Silver and Stone) first opened we worked in service teams of three or more. These teams would serve about seven or eight tables together and the tips would be dispersed appropriately. It ended up that service was good but not great. Also, the individuals were not making as much money as they should. We wanted service to be a little better and for the servers to make a little more money so we tried individual service with only about four tables each. It turned out that service quality greatly increased after this switch and it was because of social loafing. Social loafing is where individuals do not work as hard in a group compared to as when they are working alone. This was demonstrated by Alan Ingham and his associates (1974) when they asked participants to pull on a rope blindfolded. When they thought they were pulling alone, they pulled 20% harder than when they thought they were pulling with a group. This was demonstrated at my restaurant because service quality and tip percentage went up when we switched to individual service compared to team service. I remember when we were working in teams, I would not pay as much attention to my tables because I always assumed that some other member of my team would refill the water, or pre-bus the table. Now that I know all the responsibility is on me, I am much more efficient and feel like I have much more control over my tables. Not to mention I can be much more personable at my tables now which always wins people over and helps with tips.
Ingham, A., G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckman, V. (1974). The Ringleman effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 371-384.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Demonstration of Obedience: Pledgeship
Obedience is defined as yielding to a direct request from someone in a position of power. Obedience is used everyday by employers, parents, teachers, coaches, etc. Obedience is a tool that must be enforced to keep order. For example, if a coach does not have control over his or her team and they do not obey him or her, the coach will not be able to successfully convey the skills and organization that he or she wants for the team to succeed. Sometimes, people will obey others who are complete strangers as shown in Bickman (1974) where he went around asking random passersby to do unusual tasks. In this scenario 33% of people followed his orders when he was wearing normal street clothes, but over 90% followed his orders when he wore a security guards uniform. This shows that obviously people are more likely to obey authority than a random person. This was shown in an even more extreme sense when Milgram (1974) used obedience to make subjects have the impression of inflicting pain on another subject. At this time the authority figure was simply the experimenter who was running it and there was no conveyed penalty for not obeying him. However, many people still obeyed the experimenter's requests to keep on shocking the other subject simply because he asked them to.
The type of obedience I am demonstrating in this blog is that of a pledge to an active fraternity member. It is almost an unwritten rule that pledges need to obey active's requests when they are going through pledgeship. We as actives use this to keep the pledges in order and for them to successfully get accomplished what needs to be done. This needs to be somewhat strict because if one pledge gets out of line, it may start a domino effects that leads to others not obeying, and they will not learn what it means to be a true member of that fraternity. When I say obedience in this sense however, I am not talking about hazing. You will see in my video clip, that requests as simple as "get my breakfast" are obeyed without any hesitation because it does not cause harm to the pledge, it does not make him uncomfortable or embarrassed, and he is not doing anything that he is unwilling to do. In my fraternity I am a ranking officer and a senior, therefore I am in a position of authority not only over the pledges but also over some of my younger brothers. I am in a special authority position over the pledges because I am the pledge educator. My position is to lead the pledges through pledgeship and make sure that the actives are not hard on them. All actives must tell me about the requests they make of the pledges and I have to approve before it happens. This keeps hazing under control and also helps me control the flow of pledgeship. Therefore, even though I only met these pledges a few months ago they know about my position of authority.
Obedience is something that also can not be taking for granted. We have noticed in the past, that if there is too much demanding of the pledges, they will sometimes give up and drop out. Therefore, the level of obedience must be regulated and controlled. That is my job. In my video clip, I planned to meet one of my pledges for breakfast in the commons. When I met him there, I walked past the trays and simply asked if he could get one for me. Without hesitation or thinking about his own breakfast, he grabbed me a tray and followed me and got what I wanted for breakfast. I asked him nicely and was not forceful because I want to keep his respect. After he got me breakfast he goes on to say that he had no problem following my somewhat random request not matter what the reasons were. For all he knew I was just being lazy and did not feel like grabbing a tray. He then says that he was happy to comply because it was not too much to ask. This tells me that obedience has limits as well, and I would not expect him to obey to a request that was too outside the norm, or one that would cause him harm or embarrassment. Our pledges do not have a problem obeying to simple requests from me or other actives because they know that everything they do it for a reason. They are trying to prove themselves to this fraternity and learn our core values and what it means to be a brother. It is amazing how powerful this influence can be. I have heard stories of pledges doing outrageous things just because they wanted to become a member of a group, and they say they enjoy doing them. This is not the way we handle our pledgeship because that is not what our fraternity is about. Another example is the video clip on the marines that we watched. Those guys went through immense pain simply because they wanted to be apart of a club. The power of obedience is amazing as shown by Milgram (1974) and Bickman (1974). This can be a good thing or a bad thing if it is used inappropriately. It can be good in the sense of our fraternity for example, because these pledges will learn the core values of our brotherhood and will be able to relay those values to future generations of pledges. That is how fraternities survive. However, it can be bad when power is abused. A few years ago at University of Texas there was a pledge who was forced to drink until he got too drunk and fell off a balcony to his death. This is an example of how the power of obedience can be abused. Power should be used responsibly because people are very susceptible to obey others, especially when the other is in some form of authority.
Bickman, L. (1974). The social power of a uniform. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 4, 47-61.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.
Here is another example of obedience. Our pledge is introducing himself to a young lady, which emphasizes one our core values: being a gentleman.
The type of obedience I am demonstrating in this blog is that of a pledge to an active fraternity member. It is almost an unwritten rule that pledges need to obey active's requests when they are going through pledgeship. We as actives use this to keep the pledges in order and for them to successfully get accomplished what needs to be done. This needs to be somewhat strict because if one pledge gets out of line, it may start a domino effects that leads to others not obeying, and they will not learn what it means to be a true member of that fraternity. When I say obedience in this sense however, I am not talking about hazing. You will see in my video clip, that requests as simple as "get my breakfast" are obeyed without any hesitation because it does not cause harm to the pledge, it does not make him uncomfortable or embarrassed, and he is not doing anything that he is unwilling to do. In my fraternity I am a ranking officer and a senior, therefore I am in a position of authority not only over the pledges but also over some of my younger brothers. I am in a special authority position over the pledges because I am the pledge educator. My position is to lead the pledges through pledgeship and make sure that the actives are not hard on them. All actives must tell me about the requests they make of the pledges and I have to approve before it happens. This keeps hazing under control and also helps me control the flow of pledgeship. Therefore, even though I only met these pledges a few months ago they know about my position of authority.
Obedience is something that also can not be taking for granted. We have noticed in the past, that if there is too much demanding of the pledges, they will sometimes give up and drop out. Therefore, the level of obedience must be regulated and controlled. That is my job. In my video clip, I planned to meet one of my pledges for breakfast in the commons. When I met him there, I walked past the trays and simply asked if he could get one for me. Without hesitation or thinking about his own breakfast, he grabbed me a tray and followed me and got what I wanted for breakfast. I asked him nicely and was not forceful because I want to keep his respect. After he got me breakfast he goes on to say that he had no problem following my somewhat random request not matter what the reasons were. For all he knew I was just being lazy and did not feel like grabbing a tray. He then says that he was happy to comply because it was not too much to ask. This tells me that obedience has limits as well, and I would not expect him to obey to a request that was too outside the norm, or one that would cause him harm or embarrassment. Our pledges do not have a problem obeying to simple requests from me or other actives because they know that everything they do it for a reason. They are trying to prove themselves to this fraternity and learn our core values and what it means to be a brother. It is amazing how powerful this influence can be. I have heard stories of pledges doing outrageous things just because they wanted to become a member of a group, and they say they enjoy doing them. This is not the way we handle our pledgeship because that is not what our fraternity is about. Another example is the video clip on the marines that we watched. Those guys went through immense pain simply because they wanted to be apart of a club. The power of obedience is amazing as shown by Milgram (1974) and Bickman (1974). This can be a good thing or a bad thing if it is used inappropriately. It can be good in the sense of our fraternity for example, because these pledges will learn the core values of our brotherhood and will be able to relay those values to future generations of pledges. That is how fraternities survive. However, it can be bad when power is abused. A few years ago at University of Texas there was a pledge who was forced to drink until he got too drunk and fell off a balcony to his death. This is an example of how the power of obedience can be abused. Power should be used responsibly because people are very susceptible to obey others, especially when the other is in some form of authority.
Bickman, L. (1974). The social power of a uniform. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 4, 47-61.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.
Here is another example of obedience. Our pledge is introducing himself to a young lady, which emphasizes one our core values: being a gentleman.
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