Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

I th century, psychology had the luxury of debating
after the horrors of World War II, psychology changed. The specter of the
Holocaust raised troubling questions about the human mind and its relation
by what are perhaps the three most famous psychological experiments:
Stanley Milgram’s obedience study, Solomon Asch’s groupthink study, and
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study. Taken together, they stand as a
challenge to the Enlightenment picture of humans as rational beings, leaving
us with serious concerns about ourselves.
In 1951, the Polish psychologist Solomon Asch tested the ability of
people to act independently. In his experiment, test subjects were
seated at a table with seven other supposed subjects—confederates
of the experimenters. A researcher then informed the group that
the purpose of the study was to examine perception and asked
participants to look at two charts placed in the front of the room.
One of the charts had a single line on it, while the second had
three lines. One of the lines on the second chart was the same
asked to identify this line. In all cases, the correct answer was
plainly obvious.
The researcher asked each of the subjects to identify the correct
rounds, the confederates gave the correct answer, and the test
subject followed. But on the fourth round, the confederates
all gave the same wrong answer. Of the 18 sets of lines, the
confederates intentionally got 6 correct and 12 wrong.
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