Lecture
Students receive a homework assignment in advance: 1) draw up a list of the ideas, principles and habits they are most attached to, where being unable to follow them causes tension; 2) find a parable, fairy tale, anecdote or real-life incident that illustrates some stereotype or attitude at work in people's lives.
The work is carried out in four stages.
In the first stage, the group is divided into subgroups of 4–5 people each.
Instructions:«Now, discussing in your small groups, draw up a single list for your group of the ideas, principles and habits you are especially attached to, where being unable to put them into practice causes you tension. Do not aim for generalizations; let the principles and habits that go on the list be quite specific».
30–40 minutes are allotted for this task.
In the second stage, each subgroup reads out its list of principles and habits. The instructor writes on the board what each subgroup has prepared. Discussion keeps arising during this work, with students talking about the effect their attachment to particular principles has on their well-being, behaviour and life.
EXAMPLES of ideas, principles and habits:
promises made must always be kept;
whatever is planned must be carried out;
a love of order and cleanliness;
one must never be tactless;
one must never borrow money;
one must never speak publicly about one's feelings;
I am obliged to respond to every request from relatives and acquaintances;
important matters must be seen through to the end and done very well, and so on.
Once the combined list has been drawn up, the group moves on to the third stage of the work.
Instructions:«Read carefully through the list we have drawn up and mark in it, first, two ideas, principles or habits that you are actually attached to but had not realized until now, and second, two that you used to have but that no longer affect you as strongly as before».
Once everyone has completed this task, the instructor asks each participant to name two ideas, principles or habits whose hold on them was discovered while working on the combined list, as well as the ideas, principles and habits that no longer have such a strong effect on them. Participants may also be invited to describe what helped them overcome a previously rigid identification.
In the fourth stage of the work, each student tells the parable, fairy tale, anecdote or real-life incident they prepared at home. The group determines which attitude or stereotype each story they have heard illustrates.
N o t e. One may use N. Pezeshkian's collection of Eastern parables «The Merchant and the Parrot». – Moscow, 1993.
The work concludes with a group discussion. Students discuss the questions: 1) how can our unconscious stereotypes and attitudes make us the object of someone else's negative influence; 2) how does the influence we exert on other people depend on our dominant stereotypes and attitudes; 3) how should we relate to our own stereotypes and attitudes.
N o t e. One may refer to A. Ellis's list of irrational ideas that make a person an object of manipulation (Topic 5).
Students conclude that self-development is most strongly hindered by those ideas, principles and habits to which a person is especially attached, where being unable to follow them causes tension and discomfort. Similar states arise when other people fail to follow or conform to these same principles and stereotypes. The influence such attachments exert is therefore not developmental but destructive. A person having a large number of such habits and stereotypes is evidence of insufficient awareness of their own experience, which makes them an object of various kinds of negative influence. Of course, the point is not to abandon habits, stereotypes and patterns of thought and behaviour altogether, but to be able to recognize them and manage the ones that hinder development and impede effective interaction.
What definition does contemporary psychology give to the concept of «psychological influence»? What is the difference between the concepts of «personal» and «personality» influence?
Using examples, show that psychological influence can have both a constructive and a destructive force.
What do the concepts of «power», «leadership» and «psychological influence» have in common?
Demonstrate that within a person's personality there is a contradiction between two needs — «to exert influence» and «to resist other people's influence». How can this contradiction be resolved?
Give examples of people using influence in various areas of life in order to gain attention, power, revenge, or peace.
Analyse a specific situation of personal communication with someone significant to you (a parent, relative, friend, teacher, etc.). Identify the psychological and non-psychological means of influence used by you and by your partner. Assess their effectiveness.
Give your own examples of different types of influence.
What stereotypes and attitudes prevent a person from being themselves, that is, from being freer in their actions and decisions?
Give examples of managing people's stereotypes by deliberately creating conditions of situational complexity, time pressure, emotional arousal, and the presence of distracting objects, which deprive a person of the ability to control their own behaviour and turn them into a passive object of influence.
Conduct a study of the psychological impact of the mass media on people's beliefs, stereotypes and attitudes.
Which mechanisms of attitude change in people have been experimentally studied and described within contemporary theoretical orientations ‑ neobehaviourism and cognitivism?
What should one do with one's own stereotypes and attitudes in order not to become the object of unwanted psychological influence?
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