Journal Entry #12

Journal Entry #12

Power of Authority

                Stage managing for this semester has finished, and although I can say I am glad to have had the experience, I am also glad that it is over. Something that I continued to struggle with throughout the semester was trying to retain my authority as a production team member and stage manager.

                There were already major drawbacks set in place for me before the semester had started. First of all, I had not had nearly as much theater experience in my life as other members of the production team. I also have not had as much college experience in our theater troupe itself. My director this semester is one year my senior and so has had at least two semesters more of college theater knowledge than I.

                The biggest problem I could not combat because of my lack of authority was punctuality. I was not the authority head in the hierarchy of the production team. However, I was also not an equal at the top with the director. It was very clear that the director had declared herself captain of the ship long ago. This was fine at the time, but came with its drawbacks as the semester progressed.

                While it is all fine and good to send the cast and crew emails about scheduling, telling them that they have rehearsals at a certain time; the issue arises when people do not show up at the time rehearsal is called. Often, we would lose about fifteen minutes of rehearsal time that could be put to warming up, just because we are waiting around for others to show up. To my great dismay, there was nothing I could do about this dilemma because it was often the case that the director would show up late to rehearsal along with several cast members. I had no rights to admonish the cast about their tardiness, because then I would also have to be lecturing my fellow members of the production team as well.

                Authority is another one of Cialdini’s six principles of influence. Authority is influential to others because it points out that the social world views those with authority as experts, and experts are almost always right. I did not have this kind of influence over the cast because it was my first time stage managing and I was younger or the year as many of the cast and crew members.

                One issue that often arises when dealing with the power of authority is the idea of “captainitis”. This concept is described as when the captain of a ship makes a decision, all the crew members of that ship will go along with the captain’s decision because he or she is the authoritative figure. They will stick with what the captain says, even if the crew members know that it is was a poor decision. Luckily, we did not have any extreme downfalls in our play like those that happen when a team is suffering from “captainitis”.

                Production team cohesiveness needed to be maintained or else the show would fall apart, so I held my tongue about tardiness until tech week. At that point, I told them that there would be no more late arrivals during that week. That way, we would be able to start on time and hopefully end earlier so that the cast and crew as a whole could all be as efficient as possible. Thankfully, my director had the same desire to let the cast know of this change. Yet in the end it did not matter because the actors had an hour of scheduled time to get into costume and makeup. The plan had been made weeks before that as long as they were ready by 6:30 pm there would be no repercussions. This gave many of the actors freedom to walk in whenever they so pleased, and so our rule for tech week became a moot point.

                Hopefully in future semesters of stage managing I will be able to assert more influence over the cast and crew so that I may be able to help everyone use rehearsal time appropriately. In spite of this, it has been a great semester of learning, and I know I can only move forward from here. 

Journal Entry #11

Journal Entry #11

Rule of Reciprocity

Something I am grateful does not happen more often is losing my college ID card. This happened to me about two weeks ago when I was performing stage manager duties by moving things around from storage to our performance space. This may not seem like a terrible problem to others until they learn that at my college, your ID card is basically your key to survival. It is what you use to get into your dorm building, how you are identified at school events, and most importantly, your source of food. Every time you enter the dining hall, your card must be swiped so that the college can keep track of how you are using your meal plan.

So losing my college ID can now be identified as a big deal. Unfortunately, it slipped out of my pocket at night, presumably when I was pulling out my phone, and then subsequently fell into the grass between the storage and performance spaces. Taking appropriate action, I retraced my steps, looking for it all over the green, but could not find it anywhere. Then I went to our campus safety building, answered an officer’s questions about the situation, and was assured I would be called if anyone turned in my card. Then the officer at the desk called another officer who was doing driving rounds throughout the campus, and asked him to please give me a lift to my dorm. I did not have to wait long at all before the second officer came and I thanked the first for her help.

                After the pleasant drive over to my dorm, I thanked that officer as well, both for the drive and for getting me access into the building. Without him, I would have had to call a friend or wait for someone else to walk to the dorm and card in. I was very grateful for his presence, but there was no other way to show this except for saying thank you. After a late night, I just hoped all would be well in the morning. I would have loved to wake up to a phone call about my card.

                 This sadly did not happen to me, no such phone call came. As we walked to breakfast, I asked my friends to please keep a look out in case they spotted that indispensable blue rectangle anywhere. Breakfast thankfully was easy to get into; all I had to do was fill out a form providing my name, ID number, and the reason I did not have my card at the moment.

The rest of the morning was uneventful, I was still card-less at lunch. I came into the dining hall at rush hour, prepared to fill out the same form as at the previous meal. I did not get off so easily. Although it was the same man who was swiping cards before, I must not have been recognized or something had changed in the last few hours because I was not allowed entry. Then man would not let me fill in the missing card sheet! With at least 20 people already behind me in line, I told him that my card was still missing and that there was nothing else I could do. He told me to take it up with the supervisor at the dining hall, because he had been told that no one without a card was allowed to be let it in. As I suddenly grew more frustrated the girl behind me spoke up and told the man that she would use a guest pass to let me in. I was shocked. The man still scolded me and said to the girl that it was fine to let me in this once, but I would not be able to get away with that for long. She said that it did not matter, that it was fine and repeated that she would just swipe me in anyway. I did not know what to say. A complete stranger just did me a huge favor and I had absolutely no one way of returning it. I was speechless, but thanked her for about a full minute and gave her the biggest smile I could muster. What else was there to do?

The rule of reciprocity (from Cialdini’s six principles of influence) explains that a person will feel obligated to reciprocate when someone else gives them something. A study done on reciprocity was conducted by Regan in 1971, in which he measured how many raffle tickets a subject would buy from a confederate if they were either offered a Coke by the confederate himself, the experimenter, or were not offered one at all. The scene was set up so that the confederate and the subject were waiting around supposedly for an experiment to start. The subject was offered (or not) a Coke and then was later asked by the confederate if the subject would like to buy a raffle ticket. Results showed that those who were given a Coke by the confederate bought two to three times more raffle tickets than those subjects in other conditions. Some other common examples of the rule are getting a free lunch hosted by a politician and then later voting for that candidate, or going into Starbucks just to get a cup of water but then feeling obliged to buy some type of coffee beverage.

Reciprocity is not necessarily a conscious decision. People can feel the need to reciprocate without actually being aware of those feelings. I do not know anyone who thinks to himself or herself, Oh, I must reciprocate because he did something for me. I must do something back that will benefit him. Instead, individuals are probably thinking, Wow that was really nice of him to do me that favor. I should find a way to return the favor and do something kind, too.

What happens when you know you cannot return the favor? Like the day the stranger treated me to lunch? At that point, there was no way I could swipe her into lunch because I did not even have my card and she has her own meal plan anyway. I suppose there are many things I could do, like make a card or give her some kind of food treat, but that seems to me to be crossing the lines of stranger interactions.

A few questions come to mind: when reciprocity is unattainable, what is the next course of action for an individual? Does that individual go through any kind of stress because they feel like they owe another person? What can a person do to combat any sort of negative affects?

Journal Entry #10

Journal Entry # 10

Psychological Reactance

As it is approaching those last few weeks of school, I feel more encouraged than ever to go exploring around campus and to generally meander in my free time (or time that I am putting towards procrastination). These kinds of urges especially hit me when I am being told by peers and teachers, every kind of version of the phrase “You have to study for the final.” Tagged to the end of this phrase will often come conversations that stem from something like, “…what are you doing? Are you working? No? Do work! You have to study!” You can probably already tell that these conversations have very little positive effect on my productivity; in fact, it often results in my desire to do exactly the opposite of sitting down and studying. I often get quite jittery after these conversations. My restlessness cannot be eased right away though, so it often bubbles inside of me until I have time to let it all go on a walk the next day.

This kind of issue is apparently not unique to just me. Psychological reactance is the feeling of a loss of choice or freedom. It also describes the phenomenon of if we are told what to do, we have a strong desire to do the opposite thing. This describes my feeling during finals season perfectly. Even though I know it would be better for me to sit down and do work for a few hours, I have also learned about myself enough to where I know that I am not the type of person who can calmly sit for hours at a time in front of my computer or textbook, working on one subject for the sole reason of having an impending exam. I just always feel that when I am following these orders of sit down or do your homework, I am being far too submissive for my own liking. If I am going to do something, I want to do it on my own terms, not because someone else thinks it is a good idea.

Psychological reactance manifests itself in different ways. There is something called the Romeo and Juliet Effect, which is coined for couples that are staying together even though their parents do not want them to. There was an incident a few years ago in Dade County, Florida where the brand of “Tide” laundry detergent had been banned. Though choosing “Tide” over any other brand name laundry detergent seems pretty arbitrary to me, the residents of Dade County went to great lengths for their “Tide” and even committed acts of smuggling. Who ever knew that Tide and alcohol would ever appear on the same list of things that were once exchanged under the table?

In me, psychological reactance manifests itself as restlessness. I will tend to wander around campus during the afternoons when I could (and probably should) be doing some sort of academic work. Instead, I seek out new places and sort them into categories of where I think that I could potentially study in the future or where I could take a break in between classes. Some of those places are not exactly locations that I am allowed to be exploring, but they are not necessarily places I am prohibited from either (building rooftops are a perfect example of this).

My little adventures across campus are yet another example of psychological reactance, this time against the unspoken rules of campus that there are certain areas of the college where students are not expected to be wandering. However, in my personal opinion, if I am safe about where I wander and do not put anyone into harm’s way, I should not be a major concern as a “rule-breaker”.

Killing two birds with one stone – refusing to sit down and study and stay off of rooftops – really speaks to my psychological reactance and I am curious to know what other people do in these cases.