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Nov 8, 2025

 		   PSY 101    [Psychology Images]   Class 33: Social Psychology III: Conformity & Obedience (Outline)
Conformity and Obedience: Yielding to Others
Were the soldiers involved in the tortures at Abu Ghraib prison in March 2003 in Iraq
somehow "evil" or "bad apples"? Would you or I have done what they did?
Abu Ghraib: Dog Collar on Prisoner  Man with Electrodes  Abu Ghraib: Prisoner Threatened by Dogs
Video Excerpt from CBC The Big Picture | The Human Behaviour Experiments

A. Conformity = people yield to real or imagined social pressure

Question: Would I uphold my own beliefs when others around me disagree strongly?
[Asch]Asch's Conformity Experiment: 1950s
[Asch Experiment]


[Conformity in Group]

Results

  • Group Size
  • Group Unanimity



B. Obedience = a form of compliance in which people respond to the direct commands of someone in authority

Question: Would I torture someone if I was told to do so by someone in authority?

Video of Experiment (5 min., Dutch subtitles)

[S Milgram]         [Experiment Set-up]      [Shock Generator]
                           
[Milgram Results]

Traditional interpretation: Human beings are willing to follow authority even to the point of harming other people unjustly
Recently social psychologists question this:

    C. The Power of the Situation
Question: Can my personality and ways of acting be changed by new circumstances?
      The Stanford Prison Simulation (August 1971) -- Slide Show

      The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015 film) -- Trailer (2' 44") on YouTube
 
Stanprison   SPE
  • Philip ZimbardoDesigned by Stanford University social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo (b. 1933; d. 2024).
  • 24 physically healthy & psychologically well-adjusted students were randomly assigned to play the roles of either "prisoners" or "guards" in a very realistic "prison" set up in the basement of the Psychology Dept. building.
  • Scheduled to run for 2-weeks, the experiment was terminated early after 5 days
    • The "prisoners" and "guards" very quickly entered into their respective roles.
    • Guards became increasingly sadistic as they humiliated and punished prisoners.
    • Within 36 hours, the first "prisoner" began showing serious psychological side-effects including crying and withdrawal.
  • Explanations
    • Social Roles adopted by students
    • "The Power of the Situation" overwhelmed the available psychological resources these students had to maintain behavioral standards.
  • Criticism
    • Not a real "experiment" but a "theater piece" -> No hypothesis being tested.
    • Unethical because of unanticipated levels of abuse on "prisoners" by "guards"
    • Both "prisoners" and "guards" were following either explicit or implicit "scripts" -- that is, they knew what was expected of them to play-act the roles without having to be told. Many years later, participants told this to interviewers. Yet, given that the participants were hired to play the roles of guards or prisoners, it should not be surprising that they were encouraged to actually play those roles.
    • Other participants ("guards") later said that they had been told actually how to act with the "prisoners" by the experimenters including Zimbardo (though he has firmly denied this)
    • Only a handful of the "guards" actually acted in a sadistic manner.

Phil et al. 2013




 
This page was originally posted on 11/10/03