Lately, I’ve been reading about Solomon Asch’s conformity study and Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority work.

In Asch’s conformity study, conducted in 1951, he was examining how people behave in a group setting, whether social pressure from the majority could cause a person to conform. He had false participants, who were working with him, in a “visual perception test,” along with a real participant. They had to compare the lengths of lines, and determine which was the longest, etc. with an obvious answer. The false participants, or confederates, would choose a wrong answer, while the participant was tested on whether they would change their answer to match the group’s obviously incorrect response.

In many cases, they did.

In Milgram’s obedience studies, conducted in the 1960s, he had a real participant, the “teacher” give word lists to a “learner,” who was really a confederate. Whenever the learner got a word wrong, the teacher had to “shock” them with increasingly higher voltages. If the teacher hesitated or refused, a researcher in a white lab coat urged them to continue, assuring them the shocks were painful but not dangerous, even though the shock panel suggested otherwise. The teacher believed the shocks were real, and so the experiment was meant to test whether a person would listen to an authority figure, no matter if they thought they were hurting another person.

He found that often, they would, even if they themselves were distressed at causing pain to another person by shocking them. Milgram’s findings are upsetting because they show that ordinary people will participate in harm when told by an authority that it is necessary, or good.

The studies have their flaws, for certain, and have been criticized on whether they tested what they were set out to test, especially in the Milgram’s study. But ultimately, I do think these experiments show something of human behavior: we rely on others to know what to do, especially if the others are in positions of power, or in the majority group. It also tells us that authority can be judged critically and not simply followed.

Both experiments demonstrate how profoundly social context shapes individual behavior. People look to others to determine what is normal, acceptable, or necessary. Yet this social-cue dependence cuts both ways. If people follow the group, then changing the group, even slightly, can change the individual. In other words, all it may take is one or two people standing up, giving others permission to do the same.

And obedience to authority can be retaught to distinguish between benevolent and harmful authority. Just because someone is in authority does not mean they need to be obeyed. Just because something is deemed law does not mean it is legal, ethically speaking.

Often, we may find ourselves in situations where we go along with the group, because it seems safer to do so than to go against the grain. And yet, just one person going against the grain can bring others alongside them. That person can be you, or it can be another person who has taken that first step and you decide to step with them.

We do not have to obey those in power, and we do not have to go with those in the majority around us.

In the community where I grew up, many people hold political beliefs and values I have never shared. Speaking openly about that difference often places me in the minority. Yet I have learned that minorities are rarely alone for long. When one person speaks, others recognize themselves in that voice. I have learned to be more outspoken–writing my thoughts here and publishing them for others to read–because I first saw others do the same.

What all this means is that people are strongly influenced by group pressure and by even the perception of authority, but this same social tendency means that a single dissenting voice can catalyze change. The Asch and Milgram studies are usually touted as evidence of how people so easily mold themselves to others’ wills. Yet their deeper implication is not that people are weak or easily molded, but that group consensus itself can be surprisingly fragile, and one dissenting voice may be enough to shift behavior.

Non serviam. Sapere aude.
I will not serve. Dare to know.

By: Rania Hanna