Factors Influencing Conformity; Abu Ghraib Prison

     Abu Ghraib Prison; a horrific place that people don't seem to believe can still have a place in todays modern world. Unfortunely in late 2003 to early 2004, during the Iraq War, torture and humiliation of prisons was being performed in the Abu Ghraib Prison.

A Prisoner standing on a box for hours
 and told that he would be executed
if he moved.

After taking over a prison in Iraq, volunteer American Troops were sent to look after the prisoners. These troops physically, sexually and mentally abused the prisoners; including prolonged sleep deprivation, religious humiliation, and and prolonged painful postures were only a few of the techniques they used to "soften" them up for interrogation. 

     Why did these troops do this? Was there a reason? Phsycologist believe it was because of Conformity. Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. Deviations of Conformity may have more specific relevance. The first being informational influence, meaning that we want to be right and believe others have that info we might be lacking so we modify our attitudes to fit theirs. This could have happened with the troops around the them. If one of them decided to do this and the others believed them to have that information that they were lacking, they would conform. Similarly, Normative influence is that we want to be liked by others so we changed to what they expect us to be like, even if its not right. Because they were troops, they might have had a bias for them to all be rough and tough and so for other to like them, they might have conformed to be what they thought others expected them to be. The last influence is Referent Inofrmational Influence, meanignt hat we are more likley to conform to our in group and having a sense of belongingness to maintain their desired social identities. This one is very likely because what if someone protested the torutre. They would no longer be part of the in group and all of a sudden be left in the out group. They wanted to stay together as the American Troops so everyone conformed to stay in the "in-group", even if what they were doing was completely unethical on every level.

     Still, the Troops should have punishments and even though they were exposed to Conformity, there is no excuse for their actions.  

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Ethics and Issues

    The Stanford Prison experiment was not your everyday average experiment. This was a realistic, intensive experiment done in the basement of a university. Basicly what the psychologist and  psychology professor Philip Zimbardo was trying to find out was the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard were. Little did he know that he was about to violate

and expose his volunteers to harsh punishments, crossing the line of many boundaries that psychologists deemed inappropriate to put them through. 

   Zimbardos procedure to make this a reality was to first arrest, realistically, each of them. They then striped them and replaced their clothing with tattered uniforms. They were to stay there for 2 weeks but because of the unethical conditions, was short. 

   Observers said that the prison had "dangerous and psychologically damaging situations". The volunteers got so engrossed with their roles that they went over board; abusing the "prisoners" to the point where 5 dropped out early, pleading and crying to get out. They hardly realized that they were just college students, involved in an experiment. Some, protesting the situation, started "to act crazy, to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control" said Zimbardo. They felt that they needed to stick with their fellow prisoners and guards, taking sides and ganging up on one another. Eventually, an outside physiologist saw the situation and convinced Zimbardo that it was completely unethical and stopped the operation. 

   Other issues involved after the experiment. Will the guards and prisoners have hatred toward each other, even though they know it was just an experiment? These students have to shared the same school, will it cause conflicts? Also, what are the lasting affects? No one knows how serious the lasting affects could be but its sure that they all were exposed to physiologically damaging situations during the experiment.