Obedience, Conformity, and Authority

Psychological Lessons from the Holocaust 

The Holocaust was one of the darkest chapters in human history, not only for the horrific genocide it entailed but also for what it revealed about human behavior. While it is tempting to explain the actions of those involved as purely evil or inhuman, psychological research suggests that ordinary people, under certain conditions, can commit or support extraordinary acts of cruelty. The classic experiments of Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Philip Zimbardo offer critical insights into the psychological forces—conformity, obedience to authority, and the influence of situational roles—that help explain how the Holocaust could happen. 

Conformity and Group Pressure: The Asch Experiment 

In the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments to test the power of conformity—the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence a person to conform.  In the experiment, participants were placed in a group with actors (confederates) who were in on the setup. They were shown a line and asked to match it to one of three lines of similar length. The correct answer was obvious. However, the actors were instructed to all give the wrong answer out loud before the real participant responded. What Asch found was striking: about one-third of the participants conformed to the clearly incorrect majority at least once, even when they knew the answer was wrong. When asked why, many said they didn’t want to stand out or disrupt the group.  The experiment demonstrated the powerful influence of peer pressure and the human desire to fit in, even if it means going against one's own judgment 

Obedience to Authority: The Milgram Experiment 

In the early 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments at Yale University to investigate how far people would go in obeying an authority figure, even when it meant harming another person.  Participants were told they were part of a study on learning and memory. They were assigned the role of a "teacher," while a "learner" (actually an actor) was strapped into a chair in another room. The teacher was instructed to administer an electric shock to the learner every time they got an answer wrong, increasing the voltage with each mistake. The shocks weren’t real, but the participants didn’t know that.  Despite hearing cries of pain, pleas to stop, and eventually silence from the learner, a majority of participants (around 65%) continued to administer shocks up to the highest voltage (450 volts) simply because the experimenter (a man in a lab coat) told them to continue.  Milgram concluded that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent person, especially when they believe they are not personally responsible for the consequences. 

Situational Power and Role-Playing: The Zimbardo Prison Experiment 

The Stanford Prison Experiment, led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, was a psychological study that examined how people conform to roles of authority and submission. College students were randomly assigned to be either “guards” or “prisoners” in a simulated prison environment in the basement of Stanford University.   What was meant to be a two-week study was cut short after only six days due to the disturbing psychological effects it had on participants. The “guards” quickly adopted authoritarian and abusive behaviors, while the “prisoners” became passive, anxious, and depressed. The simulation spiraled as those in positions of power began to abuse that power, despite knowing it was an experiment. Zimbardo himself became too immersed in his role as the prison superintendent and failed to intervene in time 

Connection to the Holocaust 

The Asch experiment sheds light on how ordinary people in Nazi Germany may have gone along with anti-Semitic policies and rhetoric—not because they believed in them, but because they conformed to the dominant social norms. Speaking out against the regime could mean social isolation or even death. Asch’s findings reveal how the fear of standing alone can lead to silence or complicity, even when people know what is happening is wrong. 

Milgram’s work offers a chilling explanation for how thousands of individuals—guards, soldiers, bureaucrats—carried out horrific orders during the Holocaust. Like Milgram's participants, many Nazis later claimed they were "just following orders." The experiment shows how authority figures can override personal morals, especially in a structured system that rewards obedience and punishes dissent. 

Zimbardo’s experiment demonstrates how systems and roles can dehumanize people, both those with power and those subjected to it. In Nazi concentration camps and ghettos, guards and officers—many of whom were not previously violent—became brutal enforcers. Like Zimbardo’s guards, they were shaped by the environment, role expectations, and the dehumanization of victims. The experiment shows how ordinary people can become instruments of cruelty in the right (or wrong) setting.  Philosopher Hannah Arendt coined this phrase “the banality of evil” during the 1960 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust. It describes how evil acts can be committed by seemingly average individuals who accept the premises of their role and stop thinking critically. 

Shared Insights and Their Relevance to the Holocaust 

Each experiment isolates a different force—peer pressure, authority, and environment—but together, they form a powerful explanation of how human behavior can be distorted in extreme situations. They help us understand how some people, not all of them hateful or violent by nature, became part of a genocidal regime. 

The lessons of Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo remain urgently relevant. They remind us that evil doesn’t always come from monsters—it can come from people simply conforming, obeying, or playing a role. The Holocaust was not inevitable; it was the result of many small decisions to comply, stay silent, or look the other way. Understanding these psychological mechanisms gives us a chance to recognize and resist them in ourselves and our societies—so that history does not repeat itself.  However, the conclusions of the Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo experiments have each faced significant challenges and critiques over the years. While these studies were groundbreaking and influential in psychology, modern scholarship has re-examined their findings with a critical eye, focusing on ethical shortcomings, methodological flaws, cultural limitations, and overly simplistic conclusions.