Mind Games
While listening to a discussion between Eric Weinstein and Josh Wolfe, the founder of Lux Capital, on Eric’s podcast The Portal, something Eric said stood out to me. Eric mentions three psychological experiments that everyone should know and understand to grasp human psychology. We are greatly influenced by more than we would like to think. We need to become more aware of the faults highlighted in these experiments to progress and learn about ourselves. This statement came from a discussion about incompetence and lack of passion in the workforce. I thought I hadn’t heard of these experiments before, but after doing some research I found I just didn’t know their official names. Even though I’ve come across each of these experiments before, I hadn’t given them the thought I feel they deserve. They show how easily we can fall into social traps and make you question whether we are more menacing than we make ourselves out to be. The three experiments are the Asch Conformity Test, Zimbardo Immersive Reality Experiment and the Milgram Obedience Test.
I’m sure some may have come across this experiment before. It took place in 1951 and investigated the extent of the effect of social pressure from a majority group on a person. Asch did this by asking the subject to match the target line to the matching line on the right. This question would be asked in a group setting and the subject would answer the question last, after some of the seven associates in on the experiment would give a wrong answer aloud.
Over the twelve clinical trials performed, 75% of subjects conformed at least once and 25% didn’t conform at all. Overall, 36.8% of responses were incorrect and only 5% of participants were always swayed. In the control test where an individual was asked to pick the correct line on their own, they picked the wrong one less than 1% of the time. This shows how easily we’d rather get something wrong and conform than be different. When asked about their answer, they stated that they didn’t feel like the answer was correct, but they didn’t feel like being ridiculed by the group. They either conformed to fit in or because they believed the group had a better-informed eye than they did.
Zimbardo immersive reality experiment
This experiment is also known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. I feel like this experiment is spoken about the most, but we don’t seem to consider this behaviour in the workplace or in our everyday lives. The experiment was a social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. It was conducted by Philip Zimbardo and took place at Stanford University. The students were the subjects and the experiment lasted six days, less time than expected. The students were made to be either a guard or a prisoner and this was decided by a flip of a coin.
The students internalized their roles very quickly and they had to end the experiment early because they were causing possible mental and physical harm to each other. Zimbardo does establish that it could be seen as more of a demonstration than an experiment as there was no control group. It did however show how quickly we take on assigned social roles, illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. The prisoners started to revolt after the first day and the guards’ punishments got worse and worse over the six days. Zimbardo even described some of the guards exhibiting "genuine sadistic tendencies", while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized, and three of them had to be removed from the experiment early. The documentary is definitely worth watching.
This experiment measured the willingness of the subject to obey instructions from an authoritative figure. The participants were lead to believe that they were taking part in an unrelated experiment where they had to administer electric shocks to a “learner” if they were to get an answer wrong. They were given a lab coat to give them a sense of authority and they were also given one shock to feel what the “learner” was to experience. They sat in separate rooms so the subject could only hear the “learner”. The electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real. The “learner” displayed audible discomfort and would bang on the wall separating them as the shocks got worse. If at any time the subject indicated a desire to halt the experiment, the experimenter was instructed to give specific verbal prods. The prods were, in this order:
1. Please continue or Please go on.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice; you must go on.
The experiment concluded that an unexpectedly high proportion of subjects followed the instructions and continued to administer shocks. 65% of participants administered the highest shock possible of 450 volts. Although they were hesitant and uncomfortable administering the shock, they continued to do so after the prods by the authoritative figure.
These are just brief summaries of each experiment and I would recommend that everyone look at the psychologists’ findings and even watch the documentaries made about the experiments. They all raise important questions that we need to ask ourselves more. How easily are we influenced by the crowd? Do we tend to go with the majority or are we acting on our own accord? Have we let a promotion or a specific title go to our head and are we taking advantage of the people “below” us? If we’re just starting out, do we let a low paying job title define us and restrict us from progressing and growing? Do we follow orders despite thinking that it’s the wrong thing to do? These are all questions we should continuously ask ourselves as these experiments show that it’s easy for us to get caught up in a moment.