Human Behavior experiments

Three of the main behavior experiments that we looked at were the Stanford Prison experiment, the Milgram experiment, and the Line experiment.
The Stanford Prison experiment looked at how people change when they are given unrestricted power. In the study volunteers were chosen at random to play prison guards and prisoners. The first day of the experiment was a very awkward time because none of the guards felt comfortable bossing the prisoners around. After one guard decided to start being harsh with the prisoners the rest of the guards followed his lead. When this first started the prisoners would push back against the authority. However the guards kept ramping up their punishment to the point where the prisoners barricaded themselves into their cells. The guards would continue to ramp up the punishment by making the prisoners do very embarrassing things. The guards did not stop because the people in charge of the experiment never told them to dial it back. The experiment was eventually shut down after 6 days, because Zimbardo, the main psychologist behind the experiment, realized that it had gotten out of control. The experiment had gotten to the point were some of the prisoners were having mental breakdowns. This experiment shows us that when people are given unrestricted power they will abuse it.
The Milgram experiment was designed to see if people would follow orders from an authority figure even if they didn't agree with the orders. The study was done to try and figure out why the Nazis followed some of Hitlers orders. The layout of the study was they a subject was told to ask a person a set of questions, and if the person got the question wrong then they were to be shocked in increasing voltage for each wrong answer. What the person did not know what the person they were interviewing was a tape recording. As the shocks got to higher voltages the recording would beg the subject to stop, while the authority figure next to the subject would tell him to carry on with the experiment. The experiment showed that roughly 2/3 of all people would go to the top of the shock board. This was true for almost all groups of people that were tested. This experiment shows us that people will go against what they believe if an authority figure tells them to do it.
Last but not least is the Line experiment. This study was all about conformity. There was a room filled with people who were "in" on the experiment and one person who was the test subject, however they did not know the room was filled with other people who knew what the experiment was. The group was shown a line and then three other lines and asked to tell which line (a, b or c) was the most similar in length to the first line they were shown. The group that was "in" on the experiment would randomly choose the wrong line to see if the subject would conform to the group. The study showed that about 37% of the time the person would conform to the group even though they knew the answer was wrong. However when one other person also goes against the group the subject was much less likely to conform to the group. This shows that people are likely to conform to be a part of a group so that they do not stand out, but if one other person is willing to go against the group as well they you are much less likely to go with the group. That is when you do not agree with the group opinion or view.