Conformity and obedience form the basis of every public service. Without them the internal discipline and hierarchical system could not function effectively. These Public Services require their Officials to conform to the expected role and carry out orders regardless of whether they think they are right or have a better suggestion. But it must be said that there are limits to the effectiveness of Compliance and Obedience within the Public Services and that there have been situations where Officials who adhere to these expected behaviors have instead committed the wrong action. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Every public service official, regardless of service, complies as part of their role. This is demonstrated through many different examples within public services. An example would be that every public service official must wear the same uniform. In this way they conform to the behavior expected from their superiors but also from the behavior of their fellow Officers. If an officer were to wear a different uniform, he would stand out from the others and would not fit in with the group. A real-life example of this would be the conclusion drawn from a conformity experiment conducted by Solomon Asch in 1951. He used 50 uniform male students to participate in an eye test in which they, and others, would have to match the correct length of a line. The only thing was that the student was the only person who didn't know that the other members of the group had been purposely told to answer incorrectly. Asch found that, on average, about 32% conformed to the group's response. He concluded that people apparently comply for two reasons. One because they wanted to integrate into the group and the second because they believed that the group was more knowledgeable than them. Asch Experiment from Simple Psychology 2016 An example of what would happen if one did not conform to the opinions and behaviors of others in public services could behave in a way that is believed to be "prejudicial to good order and discipline" in the British Armed Forces . The punishment for this charge could range from a reprimand to imprisonment for up to 2 years. If an individual were to disobey a “lawful command” or “is reckless in disobeying a command” of a superior officer, he or she could face the same punishments as above, but the prison sentence could be up to 10 years. Armed Forces Act 2006An example of the consequences of obeying illegal orders would be the punishment against Adolf Eichmann for his crimes during World War II. During the Nuremberg Trials of 1945, Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking SS officer. He was responsible for the transportation and extermination of more than 6 million Jews and other undesirables during the Holocaust. As a result of playing an active role in many of the atrocities committed, he became known as the "chief executioner" of the Third Reich. Eichmann had no innate racial hatred. He learned to hate and did what his job required of him and to the best of his ability. He was later tried in the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes and executed. USHMM 2016 – Adolf EichmannHofling (1966) designed an obedience study that would look to see whether unwitting nurses would follow a doctor's orders even if doing so would break several hospital rules. Hofling found that 95% of nurses were easily influenced into following orders when they should not have done so..
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