Reading 37 A PRISON BY ANY OTHER NAME Reading 38 THE POWER OF CONFORMITY

O ocial psychology is the branch of psychology that looks at how your behavior 0 is influenced by that of others and how their behavior is influenced by yours. It is the study of human interaction. This branch of psychology is vast and covers a wide array of topics, from romantic relationships to group behavior to prejudice, discrimination, and aggression. This is probably the area in psychology many nonpsychologists will find the most relevant to their personal lives. Humans spend most of our waking hours interacting with other humans in one way or another, so we naturally seek to learn more about the psychological processes involved in our social relationships. Social psychology may also be the research domain that contains the greatest number of landmark studies. The four studies chosen for this section clearly changed the field of psychology by (a) providing new insights into some extreme human social behavior; (b) sparking new waves of research to either confirm, refine, or contest theories and discoveries; and (c) creating heated controversy about research ethics that ultimately led to the ethical principles discussed in the Preface of this book. The first discussion reviews one of the most well-known studies in the history of psychology: Philip Zimbardo's "Stanford Prison Study," which produced some startling revelations about the psychology of imprisonment. Second is a recounting of a crucial study that demonstrated the power of conformity in determining behavior. The third study revealed a surprising phenomenon called the bystander effect, which states that the more people who witness an emergency, the less likely anyone is to help. Fourth, we arrive at another famous and surprising milestone in our understanding of the extremes people may resort to in powerful situations: Stanley Milgram's study of blind obedience to authority.