Conformity Study example essay topic

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Benjamin Tucker Prof. J Kaka r, Eng 114 March 28, 2005 Rough Draft, Essay #3. Phillip Zimbardo, Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Howard Zinn were / are all gifted psychologists that strive d to understand the simple complexities of conformity within an individual's specific societal structure. Within their own specific areas of psychology, every single one of them came to one simple conclusion that allowed each of them to become the quality of psychologist that they are today, and that is the understanding that the power of the situation can be stronger than the individual. So much so, that the events which occurred in the Abu Gharb prison, were just a matter of time. Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, world renowned psychologist, current professor at Stanford University, and leader of the 1971 study of the 'Stanford Prison Experiment's aid "When you put that set of horrendous work conditions and external factors together, it creates an evil barrel... You could put virtually anybody in it [evil barrel] and you " re going to get this kind of behavior" (Edge).

Thirty years ago, Zimbardo began a study which demonstrated the power of a certain social situation that distorted the participants' personal identities and morality in order to understand what specifically made those personalities conform the kind of behavior that most of them, swore they could never be. quote of individual who said that he could not be mean to any living thing. Another psychologist by the name of Dr. Solomon Asch also came to the very real and innate understanding of the degree to which individuals will surrender their own morality and ethical issues to other more persuasive, however blatantly wrong situations. In 1955 Dr. Asch began a conformity study in which students were asked a simple question pertaining to their perception of the distance of a line in comparison to another line in front of them. After the subject's answer was given, the proctor, or group taking the study, would suggest an answer that was either incorrect, or different than the one suggested by the participant.

Interestingly enough, one-third of the time the participant would yield to the answer given by the majority, or the proctor and many times, the answer given would be the wrong one. What did this prove? Very simply that an individual is more likely to yield to the majority than to be considered an outcast. With social conformity, comes a sense that what you are doing is the right thing not because you know that it's right, but because if you were to go against the majority one would be considered a social outcast. Both Zimbardo and Asch conducted studies in which participants were more or less unaffected by the answers, or situations pertaining to their specific experiment. In Zimbardo's study, prisoners were relatively physically un-abused.

In Asch's study, participants who gave an incorrect answer or an answer not conforming to the majorities were unpunished. Cue: Dr. Stanley Milgram. Psychologist at Yale University and conductor of the "Obedience and Individual Responsibility" study, Milgram began a study that examined the justification of those who were accused in the World War II Nuremburg War Criminal trials in which the defense of those accused was more or less, based on 'obedience' - that they were just following the orders - of their superiors. During the study, the "teachers" of the study, actually the subjects of the study were asked to administer a shock that ranged from a very slight shock, to a very severe 450 volt shock which, with the two voltage designations before, simply labeled as " ". The subjects were asked to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to a "learner" every time they would give the wrong answer during the experiment. At 285 Volts, most screams of the "learner", could "only be described as an agonized scream.

Soon thereafter, he makes no sound at all" (Milgram, 315). With confirmation from the administer that responsibility would be theirs alone, sixty percent of the "teachers" obeyed orders to punish the "learner" with shock therapy to the very end of the 450-volt scale. No subject of the experiment stopped administering the shock treatment before 300 volts.