Conformity
Stanford prison experiment (August 15–21, 1971)

This experiment, led by psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo, recruited Stanford students using a local newspaper ad, who he checked to be both physically and mentally healthy. Subjects were either assigned the role of a "prisoner" or "guard" at random over an extended period of time, within a pretend prison setting on the Stanford University Campus. The study was set to be over the course of two weeks but it was abruptly cut short because of the behaviors the subjects were exuding. It was terminated due to the "guards" taking on tyrannical and discriminatory characteristics while "prisoners" showed blatant signs of depression and distress.

In essence, this study showed us a lot about conformity and power imbalance. For one, it demonstrates how situations determines the way our behavior is shaped and predominates over our personality, attitudes, and individual morals. Those chosen to be "guards" were not mean-spirited. But, the situation they were put in made them act accordingly to their role. Furthermore, this study elucidates the idea that humans conform to expected roles. Good people (i.e. the guards before the experiment) were transformed into perpetrators of evil. Healthy people (i.e. the prisoners before the experiment) were subject to pathological reactions. These aspects are also traceable to situational forces. This experiment also demonstrated the notion of the banality of evil which explains that evil is not something special or rare, but it is something that exists in all ordinary people.
change_case:english_capital, detectable_content:number_placeholders[2], punctuation:no_comma