Conformity Studies

Theme

Resilience

Big Idea

Analytical tools help students become insightful readers.

Essential Question:

How do authors confront the eternal struggle between

good and evil?

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONFORMITY

The Milgram Shock Experiments (8:40)

Conformity of Authority:

Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a study focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Crimes trials. Their defense often was based on "obedience" - - that they were just obeying orders whilst under the authority of their superiors.

The experiment began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann, and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

The Stanford Prison Experiment (29:00 - skip 11:45-12:15 & 18:15-19:15)

What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University. How they went about testing these questions and what they found may astound you. The planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, the guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress (adapted from the study's website).

Here is the trailer for a film version, released in 2015

Asch Conformity Experiment

Conformity of Social Forces (peer pressure) - Informational/Normative Conformity:

In Asch's experiments, students were told that they were participating in a 'vision test.' Unbeknownst to the subject, the other participants in the experiment were all confederates or assistants of the experimenter. At first, the confederates answered the questions correctly, but eventually began providing incorrect answers.

Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes

Jane Elliott was an elementary teacher, not a psychologist, but she developed one of the most famously controversial exercises in 1968 by dividing her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups. She was trying to giver her students real-life experience with discrimination the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, but her exercise had impact far beyond her intentions. After dividing her class, Elliott cited phony research "proving" that one group was superior to the other. Throughout the day, the group was treated as such. Elliott discovered that it only took one day for the "superior" group to become cruel to the "inferior" group and for the "inferior" group to develop insecurities. Some of the original participants still regard the experiment as life-changing even today.