The Power of Situation: Conformity and Obedience to Authority

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find far more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have been committed in the name of rebellion. – C. P. Snow

“It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.” – Stanley Milgram

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – JFK

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Most don’t realize the power a social setting has in influencing one’s life and immediate surroundings. Psychologists analyze behavior and often look at how a particular individual thinks or feels. This is often a short-sighted method of analytical reasoning. Social-psychologists however have a broader outlook taking social factors into consideration. They look at how people are influenced by other people. 

This post will analyze social interactions, their influences, conformity and the power of situation. Understanding aspects that social-psychologist study is important and one of the most influential is the power of situation. Situations can be so overwhelming and powerful that they can make any normal person conform to the standards others are endorsing. 

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There are a number of good psychological experiments that explain human susceptibilities to  conformity and "playing your role." Kurt Lewin wanted to study how relationships were created, grew, and flourished (see his Leadership Styles for more). See Jane Eliot's Brown Eyes vs. Blue Eyes Experiment to  understand how an arbitrary attribute, such as race or eye color, can be used to promote agressive discrimination though authority. See Muzafer Sherif and the Autokinetic Effect to explore conformity and Solomon Ash's (the predecessor of Muzafer) Conformity Experiment to discover how influential social cohesion really is.  

All of humanity can be influenced by the power of situation and social influence and these experiments give definitive proof of it's overwhelming influence. In the 1930’s and 40’s Hitler tried to spread fascism around the world. He created a social-political structure that was powerful enough to exert total control over the German people. With the best propaganda the world had ever seen the Nazi’s could fulfill their highest crime against humanity, the Final Solution. This was a shock to most social-psychologist. They couldn’t bring themselves to believe that the entire German culture consisted of sociopaths, “evil doers,” and “monsters.” 

There are important lessons to be learned from the (previously mentioned) experiments about how powerful situations are. Roles play a very important part of molding individual behavior. Previously learned values will be the automatic responses to certain stimulus. Presenting basic rules to be followed that make sense before being acted upon will increase the likelihood of those actions being full-filled even if the arbitrary rules are used to justify mindless compliance. All humans are guilty of following such scripts. 

To show such compliance, the ultimate example of conformity was displayed in an experiment done by Stanley Milgram; a former student of Solomon Asch. Stanley investigated, what has become known as, “blind obedience to authority.” His interest in this subject came from a deep personal concern about how the Nazis, having once been normal everyday citizens, were able to easily becomes soldiers, killers, brutal guards, gas chamber attendants, holocaust supporters, and Final Solution activists. 

Zimbardo’s prison experiment furthered Milgram's research and was done to see what good people would do when put into a bad situation. The experiment was so powerful that many of the prisoners had to be released due to extreme stress reactions. 

It is important to apply the fundamental attribution error when thinking about an individual.  Social psychology has shown us that we can no longer divorce human action from that human's environment. The power of situation is a great force, and although under-estimated and under-attributed does not make it's effects any less real. 

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