The Power of the Situation Video with Phillip Zimbardo as Host 0:01-50 - 13:27 Tape 19 BF 121 .D57 2001
The situation is often more powerful than individual personalities. The social situation significantly controls behavior. There are times when the social context works against us (e.g., Hitler's Germany). He exerted total control over the German people. How could a dictator transform rational people into blind obedience?
As a result of Hitler's Germany, Kurt Lewin studied leadership styles (1939). This research began modern social psychology. His research compared the effects of autocratic leaders (boys worked only when observed and were more aggressive), laissez-faire, and democratic (highest motivation, greatest originality, and the most praise). It was not the personality. It was the situation. This is the theme of social psychology: The power of the situation.
The Asch conformity studies
The Milgram studies of destructive obedience (Pages 28-33 in the Aronson text)
1.	Forty experts predicted before the study that no one would administer more than 150 volts.
2.	In fact, two-thirds of the subjects administered the maximum 450 volts to the learner. C. P. Snow has argued that more harm is done by obedience than by rebellion.
3.	Fundamental attribution error--The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors.