Under the Microscope/Prof William Reville:Tyranny and atrocity are all too familiar features of the modern world - concentration camps, "ethnic cleansing", suicide bombers, etc.
How can people behave in such brutal ways? Psychological studies since 1950 produced a consensus that tyranny triumphs either because ordinary people blindly follow orders, or because they mindlessly conform to powerful roles. However, recent research by Stephen Reicher and
S Haslam (The Psychologist, Vol 19, No 3, 2006 and Vol 21, No1, 2008), shows that this interpretation is too simplistic.
Initial explanation of group pathology focused on individual psychology, until the historian Hannah Arendt witnessed the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a primary architect of the Holocaust. Arendt expected to witness a "perverted and sadistic personality". Instead, Eichmann came across as an unremarkable, ordinary man and Arendt pronounced him to be an embodiment of "the banality of evil".
Other work soon supported Arendt's conclusions, in particular the experiments of Stanley Milgram in the 1960s at Yale University. Well-adjusted males were recruited as "teachers" into a bogus experiment in which they were instructed to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to a "learner". Unknown to the participants, the learner was an accomplice of the experimenter and received no shocks. All teachers administered shocks up to 300 volts and, amazingly, two thirds administered 450 volt shocks, despite hearing the learner scream in "agony".
The high point of this type of inquiry was the 1971 Stanford University Prison Experiment, supervised by Philip Zimbardo. College students were randomly assigned to play either prisoners or guards in a simulated prison. Zimbardo acted as superintendent of the guards. The object was to study the dynamic that developed between prisoners and guards over two weeks. However, the guards behaved so harshly the study was aborted after six days.
Two conclusions were derived from these studies. The first is that individuals in groups lose their capacity for intellectual and moral judgment and the second is that people placed in groups and given power develop an impetus to act tyrannically.
Social psychologists came to doubt these conclusions over the years. They point out that Zimbardo instructed his guards to act against the prisoners, eg "you can create a sense of fear". The new social identity theory developed in 1979 holds that it is mostly in groups that people can effectively shape their own fate, and also points out that people do not automatically accept the group membership that others give them.
Social identity theory recently received powerful support from a Stanford-like experiment called the BBC Prison Study. Two social psychologists, S Alexander Haslam and Stephen D Reicher set up the study and the findings were broadcast by the BBC.
In this study, men were randomly assigned into guards and prisoners in an environment modelled on a prison. Participants' behaviour was monitored using unobtrusive cameras and psychological tests. The experimenters assumed no role in the prison. For the first three days of the experiment prisoners could be promoted to guard status - this opportunity was withdrawn after three days.
AT FIRST THE prisoners were co-operative and worked hard hoping to achieve promotion. When this opportunity lapsed they became unco-operative but gained cohesion as a group, behaved effectively and positively and showed enhanced mental well-being and empowerment.
The guards did not thrive. Some felt uncomfortable with power, were reluctant to exert control, quarrelled with other guards and never developed a sense of shared identity. They became increasingly ineffective at maintaining order.
After six days the prisoners challenged the demoralised guards and the prisoner-guard structure collapsed. But, a new movement of prisoners and guards arose to establish a "self-governing, self-disciplining commune". However, some members still could not come to terms with the idea of using power and would not discipline individuals who broke the new rules.
Supporters of the commune now lost faith in their ability to make the new structure work. Some former prisoners and guards proposed a coup in which they would become the new guards and promised to use force as necessary to ensure prisoners "toed the line". Supporters of the democratic commune were not prepared to fight the coup. The organisers stopped the experiment at this stage for ethical reasons.
The authors conclude that "although tyranny is a product of group processes and not individual pathology, people do not automatically lose their minds in groups, do not supinely bow to the requirements of their roles and do not automatically abuse collective power". People identify with groups only when it makes sense to do so and then they actively try to implement collective values.
But why do some groups carry out atrocious acts? Haslam and Reicher attribute this to two sets of circumstances. The first is success of a group that has oppressive social values, usually focused against a particular out-group, eg Jews. The second set of circumstances arises when attempts to foster democratic and humane social values fail. People now become open to alternatives that previously seemed unacceptable, particularly the order promised by a rigid hierarchical regime. For example, the failure of the chaotic democratic Weimar led to the rise of Nazism.
In the BBC prison experiment the participants rejected the mild inequalities imposed, worked hard to establish a democratic system, but ended up drifting into a self-imposed tyranny. If we reject reasonable use of power for fear of tyranny we can set up the conditions whereby the very tyranny we fear takes over.
William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Public Awareness of Science Officer at UCC - see web site http://understandingscience.ucc.ie