Is Your Morality Being Manipulated?

in #manipulation8 years ago (edited)

Lately you have been hearing about morality, truth, and understanding. It is what creates us to value the things we do in life.

Morality

Morality (from the Latin moralis "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".
Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, or the origin of morals, as well as moral epistemology, or knowledge about morals. Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states that: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."
-Wikipedia


Without having the right information, the decision made on what you value from your understanding of truth can change the action you take. The video below shows an example.

There are 2 baby chicks, 1 being a toy, and 6 empty cups turned upside down. The gentlemen explains to the woman that he will give her $100 for smashing all the cups except the one with the toy baby chick inside and the other 2 get to run around and watch. As she is going through this experiment, notice how the baby chicks are closer to the end on the left. When you see the woman crush the #5 cup, you hear him state "Oh!, you scared cody." That was purposefully done. Now the woman is aware if she get's too close, she could scare the baby chicks running around. Before she crushes #6, Once again the gentlemen state's how the baby chicks are between the #1 and #2 cups so naturally, she thought to stay away from smashing those cups. Finally, the woman is left with the #1 and #4 cup. Now will see the gentlemen pick up the baby chicks and present them to the woman near the #1 cup and remind her how "precious" they are to give the impression to be careful and not to bring harm near them. So automatically she will choose #4. Little did she know, the gentlemen had place a real baby chick instead of the toy one under the #1 cup. The woman was shocked and felt terrible that she even participated doing that in the first place and would not have, had she known there was a real baby chick going to be used in the experiment.

The thing was of course this was manipulated the entire time, because it's an experiment, a real baby chick was under the #1 cup attracting the other 2 near the #1 cup.


Would you have done it if you had the right information? the truth?


Most of us have it instilled in us to do the right thing when we find ourselves in moral dilemmas we encounter in our lives. The ones who raised us and our surroundings help create our own understanding of morality.

The next experiment has a barista purposefully giving out the wrong change to customers. The barista has a nice attitude toward the customers that she had given the wrong change to. She walks away to to take care of some things and returns to have those customers morally acknowledge the mistake and return the change.

You won't see this second part of the experiment on the video below but the barista will change from a nice one, to a barista with an attitude. Customers are kept waiting as the barista is on cell phone talking and and giving horrible service. Now you see some customers keep the amount of change that was wrongfully given to them. Not all do this and you even do see a woman say something about the barista's attitude while returning the change. The customers that took the change explained that if it wasn't for the long wait and attitude, they wouldn't have kept the change.


If you want to watch the entire episode, you can watch it on dailymotion by the link below.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4lpq9m_brain-games-s05e03-morality_tv


Manipulation

  1. to manage or influence skillfully, especially in an unfair manner: to manipulate people's feelings.
  2. to handle, manage, or use, especially with skill, in some process of treatment or performance: to manipulate a large tractor.
  3. to adapt or change (accounts, figures, etc.) to suit one's purpose or advantage.
    -Dictionary.com

Now question yourself, is your own morality being manipulated in some way? well let's take a look at the Images below. Time Magazine portrays a frivolous life to Americans while the rest sending a different message to the rest of the world.

We see this all over the internet.

Some may view the images below as clever marketing but you can see how this can fall in to those definitions of manipulation.

Most of us actually do this to ourselves all the time without even knowing it. There are many parenting books that been written for a long time giving suggestions to parents on better parenting skills. Some call this the "two-choice-technique" and is to present a child with two choices. We see this all the time, "eat your vegetables, or no desert." "Do you want to get to desert? Or have no desert at all?"

Most of us blindly go through life without being aware. When it comes to adults, it's usually business and many know the term as "A.B.C. = Always Be Closing."

“John, you’re really a whiz with that new software today. Would you prefer to train your staff yourself, or shall we provide the training?”

Boiler Room is a great movie that shows how extreme this type of manipulation goes when we are adults. The scene below is actor Vin Diesel taking a call from a junior stock broker to close the sale. The victim in the scene is a doctor. You can hear the choices throughout the video and at the end of the call you will also hear him say "do you want the confirmation sent to your office? Or your mansion?"


Another scene from Boiler Room that shows how far people are pushed and manipulated.


Social Conformity

We can see this come to question in this social conformity experiment video below. A woman is waiting to see the doctor along with others and every time there is a beep in the office, everyone will stand up. She is not aware of this "rule" or behavior and after enough times, being in a social setting, was manipulated into being in the "social norm" and stand up along with everyone else. When they take everyone away and the woman is alone, she continues to stand up. A new person is added to experiment that doesn't know about the "rule" and asks the woman why she is standing up. She explains to him she saw everyone else do it so that's why she does it. She doesn't even know why she's doing what she's doing.

Responsibility

We have a responsibility to enforce morality with truth and understanding without personal gain. Being aware can give someone the knowledge and the advantage to have influence in a manipulative manner. Whether you choose to be moral or not with this awareness, it starts with you make the decision and be the change.


Sources 1, 2, 3


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Of course mosality can and is being manipulated. That's part of the purpose of propaganda.

Good demonstrations of how word magic and influence of consciousness can manipulate behavior. Resteemed.

An important question for people to ask themselves is: if you claim to care about "Tyler", the harmless innocent chick, why don't you care about the other "Tylers" you pay others to kill, or kill yourself, for you to satisfy your pleasure when you can eat and thrive without harming others? For survival? Nope. And survival and choice does not dictate morality. Morality is supposed to dictate our choices if we align with it. So much information is out there to learn more, reality is there with animals before us to learn more about them and their cognitive, emotional and psychological lives. Disabled Rooster Helps At-Risk Children.

Thanks. I was hoping I presented it well enough for others to understand. We do so many things without even realizing that we do it to ourselves.

Morality is supposed to dictate our choices if we align with it

You couldn't have put it any better.

After getting all upset, she probably went to lunch and had a chicken salad. I'm not a vegetarian, I just think lack of perspective is funny sometimes.

Interesting study

It's been a while since I've entered into these sorts of discussions, but if I recall correctly ethics enters this discussion as what "ought" to be, in a more universal sense. Morals reflect what we do and can sometimes be subjective.

An example could be a code of honor. In one society it could be a code of honor to never shoot a man in the back. That would be their moral imperative. In another society the situation would warrant further review. For instance, what if the person you'd have to shoot in the back was stronger and more capable than you, and was about to kill innocents if you didn't take them out? Does the code of honor to not shoot someone in the back supercede that or bow before it?
Some would call this situational ethics. But I don't think it fits. It's wrong to murder in cold blood. But is it wrong to kill to defend those who cannot defend themselves, even if killing involves a non-personal attack from a safe distance? I think most of us would agree that it is not wrong.

Perhaps another way to put it would be that ethics objectively embrace the NAP. Morals are a society's effort to codify ethics.

Or, since it's been a while since I've worked through this, I have my wires crossed. ;)

Thank you for the feedback. Yes you are correct about ethics, that is to govern our moral behavior on what we think "ought" to be right and wrong.

If you think about your example, that is the kill or be killed mentality and there is nothing wrong with that, ultimately that is part of our survival instincts but were we built with killer instincts? The thought of harming others should not be entering anyone's mind at all but that is not the case in this world.

Just because you can think it, doesn't mean you should think it.

We have the answers to most of our questions within us. If an individual had the correct knowledge and understanding of morality, and ethics, one would not need to harm anyone at all or worry about being harmed.

I don't think that experiment was really a case of manipulating morals. Your morals are your morals and it can certainly take a certain amount of correct information to act according to your desire in that regard. This is more a case of manipulating someone through deceit. You can manipulate someone anytime you can successfully mislead them but this isn't really manipulating their morals.

Even the time magazine thing seems like it is jumping to conclusions. Time magazine's goal is to sell magazines. They will put different covers in different places if they believe that is what will sell in that location. Unless that cover is a misrepresentation of what is inside the magazine, I don't see it as manipulation and certainly not manipulating your morals. It's just a smart business decision to use a cover/story that appeals to your market. And not every Time magazine cover in the U.S. displays frivolity. I've seen the Time magazine meme around for a long time but has anyone ever asked them why they use different covers to see what they say?

I think people have an obligation to educate themselves so that they can not easily be misled but in the case of the chicken experiment, I'm not sure what the lesson would be other than don't trust anyone ever. Not sure that's a great lesson.

It turns out it's one of the only lessons. Good intent, no matter how good, still does not equal an unfailing safety net. Understanding the part that fallibility plays in trust is critical. Not giving in to cynicism or pessimism in the face of this is also integral to learning resilience. Every lesson can be great.

If you don't see it that way, then you don't see it that way. That is why I stated "some will view this as clever marketing."

The experiment was to show show morality. Then I went on to describe manipulation. Then I went on to describe the choice to be moral with the awareness of this.

The lesson isn't not to trust anyone, the lesson is morality, truth, and understanding. The power of thought and influence and an individual to be responsible with that power.

I think that all of these are at least aspects of moral challenges. It appears to me that there is a persistent and systemic misunderstanding of the meaning of morality. Many people want it to be all wound up with spooky, feely, superhero that lives in the sky, magical thinking relativism. I am not sure why so many reject morality based in reason.

Zen has a similar concept in "correct action" or action with respect to the parameters of the dynamics of the natural world. When performed correctly, action becomes effortless, due to avoiding action that resists natural dynamics.

Yes because essentially these were controlled experiments but it was just to give an example of what we perceive as moral truth and wonder, is it all the truth? How do we distinguish it? Do we have a good sense of understanding morality ourselves?

Thank you for the feedbacks :)

It's hard to even rely on "morality" when our community manipulates what is moral depending on their own desires. The only true compass is yourself. Sales is mind control. People have hooks built in that some people know how to manipulate. Government's manipulate people the same way. The Gulf of Tonkin is a perfect example. Imagine President Johnson saying what Vin is above... "Do you want to avenge the USS Maddox today or tomorrow?" I did a steem about this technique here: https://steemit.com/mindcontrol/@jamestrue/a-simple-blueprint-for-mind-control