Prompt #1:

What did you think of the video? Were you able to “step outside of your thoughts and be-
havioral patterns” and reserve a part of your mental capacity to “listen” to and monitor
your internal reactions as a means of gaining a deeper insight into the nature of your-
self? What’s your perspective on this notion of “self-awareness” in the present moment
as a tool to learn more about yourself? Was this “radical experiment” an effective one in
terms of helping you understand the concept of empathy?

I’ve always felt like I had a grasp of the concept of empathy but after viewing the video I realize
that I might sometimes blur the lines of sympathy and empathy. The two quotes that stuck with
me the most from Sam Richard’s video were: “Terrorist? Or Patriotic Defender?” and “Step out-
side of your tiny little box and step inside the tiny world of someone else”. I was able to gain a
deeper insight of myself by even thinking of daily situations in that way. Put myself in their shoes
as he said. One of my mottos I picked up from customer service training at work is to always as-
sume positive intent. I think in the hustle of day to day life that’s an easy one to forget and in-
stead, come off with some knee jerk reaction to a situation based on how are day is going. We
should all step outside our thoughts, take a second, and try to empathize with someone during
tense situations to help practice self awareness instead of viewing the world from two different
towers.

Prompt #2: Make some connections between the “Radical Experiment in Empathy” TED
Talk and the ideas you have been reading / learning about this week. Be sure to describe
your concepts / connections carefully and use in-text cites.

This might come across as odd but I like to think that the Ted Talk which described how so
many of us unfortunately act also had striking connection to the idea of conformity. We all have
our own individual thoughts regarding a social issue but they don’t fully develop until we get all
the pieces in place that are missing. Meaning we conform to a basic foundation of empathy or
lack thereof and start to justify our actions like the “guards” in the Stanford prison experiment
(pg.184), regardless of if they are positive or negative. For some extremist, it’s easy to conform
to the idea of hating the enemy on a much larger scale when we tailor our daily information to
those values through news and social media outlets. You might say that a large group of al-
ready like minded individuals are “looking up at something” (pg. 189)

Part 2: Personal Experiences with Power and Powerlessness

Part 2 / OPTION 2: Think of a time that you were in a fairly long-term subordinate posi-
tion and respond to the following prompts:

Prompt 2-1: Describe your role, along with you relationship to the authority figure.

I was a subordinate of my district manger who is no longer with the company for five years. She
was the my DM for the longest amount ofttimes as I mange a store along a highway corridor
that gets “realigned” quite often as new stores are built. The first three years of the relationship
were very tense and I always had a feeling of despair overtime she walked in the door or I felt
anxious the days leading up to a scheduled visit as I knew there would be something wrong in
her eyes and if there wasn’t an actual issue, she would take something small and dig on it until it
became an issue. The final two years improved to a point of mutual respect regarding work alt-
hough my personal feelings never changed.

Prompt 2-2: How did your authority figure exert his or her authority over you? In other
words, how did the person get you to do what she or he wanted you to do? If the person
used principles of compliance, describe which ones, how they were used, and how you
responded to them (in terms of your actions, as well as your feelings about them). If the
person enforced the authority with negative consequences for disobedience, describe
how this was used and how it affected you. Give an example or two to illustrate your de-
scription.

I can pin-point where it all started as a Principle of Reciprocity. Our first interactions involved my
leader talking about my own development, the great things I had accomplished, and what she
was doing to put me “out there” in terms of further development. Just shortly after, the favors
started rolling in and presented as a way to further develop myself when really it was helping
her get some heavy lifting done. By relating to my development she was using the principle of
liking. Of course I would comply because who didn’t want to further their career? Later, unbe-
knownst to me, things were not going well in her own relationship with her leader and she was
under fire so to speak. She would come in and complain about something minor and throw eve-
rything back in my face that I had worked on saying things like “how can you be taken serious
for development when xxxxx isn’t even complete?” I kind of agreed and thought maybe I was
somehow heading backwards.

Prompt 2-3: When the authority figure did something that frustrated, angered, or hurt
you, how did you respond (both publically and privately)? What are your reflections on
that situation and your response to it?

Privately I would “detox” by calling a peer to gain their perspective or rant about whatever the
situation was for the day. Often, they would share their own frustrations about situations equally
as ridiculous. It was through these conversations that reshaped my position about my own worth
or skill set as I realized it wasn’t just me but out of 11 stores, every store leader felt the same
way. As we all started to learn this the principle of social proof took over and we voiced our con-
cerns to her leader which lead to several conference calls, meetings, and 1:1 interviews with us.
Some were so obedient at this point that they wouldn’t speak out until a few of us did.

Prompt 2-4: In what ways did your experience in a subordinate position affect your con-
cept of yourself? In other words, what new facets of yourself (positive and/or negative)
did you uncover as a result of your experiences?

Since I was eventually able to overcome the situation I developed a highly favorable image of
myself compared to what it was in the beginning. They way I was able to do so was focus on my
strength of understanding peoples personalities, or so I thought. I had a knack for it and going
through this class is just strengthening that! Once I figured out her underlying motives and pat-
tern of behavior I would tailor my approach to her when she visited to ensure I still had positive
self esteem when she left. It wasn’t easy at times, I kind of felt like a stanford prisoner in my own
store where nothing was right, fun, or basically allowed. Every action be it right or wrong, had
some kind of consequence. I turned the tide of the relationship with my own principle of liking,
making her commit to me again by telling her we are on the same team and I know stuff with her
leader was rough. It was my job to make her look good, so help me get there.