In Asch’s famous conformity experiments, people were shown a line and then asked to select the line of a matching length from a group of three. Asch also placed confederates in the group who would intentionally select the wrong lines. While we might like to believe that we would resist group pressure (especially when we know the group is wrong), Asch’s results revealed that people are surprisingly susceptible to conformity. Not only did Asch’s experiment teach us a great deal about the power of conformity, but it also inspired a whole host of additional research on how people conform and obey, including Milgram’s infamous obedience experiments. In one condition, the adult model behaved passively toward the doll, but in another condition, the adult would kick, punch, strike, and yell at the doll. The results revealed that children who watched the adult model behave violently toward the doll were more likely to imitate the aggressive behavior later on. The debate over the degree to which violence on television, movies, gaming, and other media influences children’s behavior continues to rage on today, so it perhaps comes as no surprise that Bandura’s findings are still so relevant. The experiment has also helped inspire hundreds of additional studies exploring the impacts of observed aggression and violence. The Stanford prison experiment was originally slated to last a full two weeks. It ended after just 6 days. Why? Because the participants became so enmeshed in their assumed roles that the guards became almost sadistically abusive and the prisoners became anxious, depressed, and emotionally disturbed. Part of the notoriety stems from the study’s treatment of the participants. The subjects were placed in a situation that created considerable psychological distress. So much so that the study had to be halted less than halfway through the experiment. The study has long been upheld as an example of how people yield to the situation, but critics have suggested that the participants’ behavior may have been unduly influenced by Zimbardo himself in his capacity as the mock prison’s “warden.“ The results of his controversial obedience experiments were nothing short of astonishing and continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial today. The study involved ordering participants to deliver increasingly painful shocks to another person. While the victim was simply a confederate pretending to be injured, the participants fully believed that they were giving electrical shocks to the other person. Even when the victim was protesting or complaining of a heart condition, 65% of the participants continued to deliver painful, possibly fatal shocks on the experimenter’s orders. Obviously, no one wants to believe that they are capable of inflicting pain or torture on another human being simply on the orders of an authority figure. The results of the obedience experiments are disturbing because they reveal that people are much more obedient than they may believe. The study is also controversial because it suffers from ethical concerns, primarily the psychological distress it created for the participants.
