Ascension Blog

In Part One of this series we looked at the concepts of power within the workplace and how it relates to a organizations corporate culture.  In this posting we will examine how psychological and social science concepts can influence power and culture. 

 

 Influencing Power and Culture

How do we change corporate culture in order to achieve greater adherence with Information Security, and in turn change the behaviors that expose the company to risk and vulnerability?

Following an understanding of power and corporate culture, we must endeavor to change the fundamental way that people think about information security and subsequently act in relation to this knowledge.  This speaks to the root problem within most organizations. Most individuals acknowledge the importance of Infosec but continue to behave in a manner inconsistent with this knowledge. 

The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment is referred to as cognition. Social cognition is the study of how people process social information, especially its encoding, storage, retrieval, and application to social situations.  These concepts are important because we must first understand the problem we are facing before we can decide on how best to rectify it.  Otherwise, we would be addressing the symptom of the problem rather than addressing the problem itself. 

Much of the understanding we have on this process can be tied to experiments of many psychologists and social scientists starting with the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960’s and subsequently built upon over the years.  These experiments have lead to the development of five principles of social cognition:

• The Power of the Situation over Behavior,
• Blindness for Situational Influences,
• Social Perception and Self-Perception are Constructive Processes,
• Blindness for the Constructed Nature of Social and Self-Perception, and
• Self-Processes are Social.

Each of these principles provides a valuable insight into how individuals perceive their environment.  This perception influences how decisions are made and can be valuable in determining how to influence others within an organization. 

Power of the Situation over Behavior

Social situations exert a powerful influence over each of us.  Originating with Milgram’s work on obedience to authority, this principle forms the foundation for social cognition and has been extended to how individuals exhibit a tendency to conform their behavior to that of the groups to which they belong.  Another interesting aspect of this principle is that while group dynamics can alter individual reactions, these very same individuals tend to seek other individuals when in need rather than groups.

Blindness for Situational Influences

Individuals are largely unaware of the influence that social situations have on behavior (their own or someone else’s behavior). 

In preparation for his experiments, Stanley Milgram consulted with psychiatrists to ensure that the experiments would not have any long-term psychological affects on his subjects.  He was told that his subjects should be expected to refuse to do anything that would cause harm to another individual.  What he found was quite the opposite.

Milgram’s study asked each subject to administer a shock to another subject that was being asked questions.  If the subject answered incorrectly, a shock was to be administered.  The real subject (the one actually delivering the shock) was asked to deliver subsequent shocks 15 V higher than the previous shock (the “shockee” was actually not connected to anything but were prompted to fabricate responses in order to gauge the reaction of the “shocker”).

What happened is that the “shocker” subject begins to justify their actions based upon the “shockee’s” responses and the prompting of the scientific experimenter in the room with them.  The psychiatrists did not appreciate the influence the situation would have over the subjects.

Social Perception and Self-Perception are Constructive Processes

Perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. 

 

Perception is an important influence on how we organize our thoughts and interact with our environment.  In other words, our perception of the world is constructed by our understanding of abstract concepts. Our social perception is based on currently activated mental representations, motives, and processes. 

Blindness for the Constructed Nature of Social and Self-Perception

Individuals are unaware that their perceptions of their environment are actually based upon their own understanding of abstract concepts; therefore, their environment is interpreted as direct perceptions of reality.  This can lead to interpersonal misunderstandings when people from different cultures interact as is much evident within the world today.  This can also be attributed to the “us versus them” attitude that we experience as information security professionals. 

Self-Processes are Social

Individuals base their own self-knowledge much the same way they perceive the world around them.  In the same way that individuals are unaware that their interpretations of their environment are influenced by how they define abstract principles, these abstract concepts also influence an individual’s perception of self. 

In Parts Three and Four of this series we will explore the practical application of these concepts.

Tags: corporate culture, Office Politics, perception, Self Perception, Self Processes, social cognition, Social Perception, stanley milgram

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 07:44 and is filed under General.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.