Understanding Opression Tendencies !

Nearly half a century ago a psychology experiment at Stanford University in California  revealed the dark side of the human psyche.  It has long held a leading place in trying to understand why healthy, normal, rational people can turn into monsters when power is delivered into their hands.

A professor of psychology persuaded twenty-four of his students to undertake an experiment during the holidays for which they would be paid.   They were randomly separated into two groups, one of which would play the role of prisoners while the other would be guards.   A mock prison was constructed in the basement of the Stanford psychology department.

The experiment was timed for a period of two weeks but was cut short just six days later.  The professor was horrified to discover signs of mental breakdown from stress in some of those acting as prisoners and it quickly became evident that some of the guards were showing a tendency to sadism. This play acting has long been described as the most notorious experiment in the field of human psychology.

The thesis that power results in oppression has often been cited to explain why relations between guards and prisoners in the worlds jail systems often leads to riots and breakouts.  It has been used to explain the extraordinary conduct of American service personnel who were tasked to interrogate detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.   Simply putting on a uniform delivers power and with it the opportunity to oppress.

Now the findings of that Stanford experiment have been challenged by another psychology professor at the university of Queensland.  There was an assumption that it showed willingness to oppress others simply by putting on a prison guards uniform. New evidence showed that some guards actually resisted these goals and were cajoled by the experimenters into enacting them.   The outcome suggests that individuals would be heavily influenced by the group attitude that was prevailing at the time they commenced their duties.

It could also explain why decent, ordinary soldiers rostered for duty in concentration camps during the second world war succumbed to the absolute inhumanity ordered by their superiors.  This form of collective brutality manifests itself across a broad range of power spectrums.   It could explain why some police forces are out of control in their policing methods, and it certainly sheds a light on why many prisons are at the point of mutiny.

In the Stanford experiment, the briefing to the " guards " was enlightening.  They were told " You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree.  You can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system - and they have no privacy   They have no freedom of action, they can do nothing and say nothing that we don't permit.  You are going to take away their individuality in various ways.  In general, what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness . "

Perhaps that past failed experiment needs a re-evaluation.  Wherever power is placed in human hands the strength of the most powerful personalities manifests itself.   It seems obvious that when the commanding authority fails to carefully select the core group which will dominate the actions of others this sort of problem will inevitably occur.

What that Stanford project made clear is that result is not inevitable.