The Power of the Environment

The power of the environment has a way of changing and transforming people to a point of obedience and conformity, and, sadly, cruelty.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. – Stanley Milgram, “The Perils of Obedience,” 1974

In our world, we are conditioned to obey authority – school faculty, TSA agents, police, the IRS – always for good reasons, of course – education, safety, security. Destructive acts can easily be presented as constructive and necessary.

"Decent people participate in horrific acts not because they become passive, mindless functionaries who do not know what they are doing, but rather because they come to believe -- typically under the influence of those in authority -- that what they are doing is right," Professor Haslam explained.

Professor Reicher, of the University of St Andrews, added that it is not that they were blind to the evil they were perpetrating, but rather that they knew what they were doing, and believed it to be right.

Video: BBC The Experiment – Prison Study – featuring Professor Alex Haslam

Video: The Stanford Prison Experiment – featuring Dr. Philip Zimbardo