What do Milgram and Zimbardo Experiments Teach us about the Power of Organizations to Control People’s Behaviors?

Abstract

Although the idea that everyone is equal is established for a long time, we can still see hierarchies in different places, such as schools and firms. Power relation co-exists with hierarchy since the higher an individual is in the hierarchy, the more power he can obtain to control others. In this article, we explore the factors that can affect one’s actions by analyzing the two famous experiments, Milgram’s experiment and Zimbardo’s experiment, to see the how would power of organizations control individual’s behaviors. At the end, we found not only the power of the organization and authority figures can influence individuals’ actions, other factors including one’s belief, the role which the individual plays and the setting of reward and punishment may also affect people’s behaviors.