Simsoc Reflection - 608 Words

SIMSOC Reflection The SIMSOC program allowed our class to create not only small individual societies, but also one large society together in which every decision had an outcome that must be addressed in order to thrive. Such dynamics of a real society were put in place to ultimately show us how various social situations can have power us. Specific situations were set up before hand without us knowing and we unconsciously and impulsively conformed to certain roles and conditions. I personally started out unemployed and broke with nothing, however I was in the yellow group and we had multiple heads of organizations, which helped us as a group substantially in almost every aspect. We did not find out until the end that it was†¦show more content†¦This sort of â€Å"division† of the groups led to an in-group and out-group bias with altered group cohesion. The red group may have seen us [yellow group] as weak and green dominant after the green group made a large arrest my group and mad e it appear as though we were essentially irrelevant. It is actually funny that this happened, and also displayed fundamental attribution error of our group, because just before the arrest we were talking about arresting one of the other groups and thinking it would be so great and then when it actually happened to us we became sour, offended, and sought revenge against the green group. Another psychological aspect that was substantially present within the simulation was the social exchange theory. This theory essentially epitomized our SIMSOC in that most social consequences and standings came about through negotiations and dealings between our groups. Virtually every exchange between groups that I witnessed involved a cost-benefit analysis from both parties as they also compared alternatives to seek the most beneficial outcome. This posed the question of â€Å"what is fair?† and again brought up the norm of reciprocity from the groups receiving propositions from others . The experience of SIMSOC allows the participants get a taste of a real society and see how social factors can so easily influence our actions and motives.