Conformity & Prejudice

During the lecture and readings on conformity/prejudice, I remembered a social experiment that a high school teacher conducted in Palo Alto, CA called the Third Wave. The teacher, Mr. Ron Jones, attempted to teach his students about fascism in Nazi Germany. Essentially, he created a movement for his students to become a part of, and set down rules for his students to follow. Students had to be sitting at attention before the second bell, had to stand up to ask or answer questions and had to do it in three words or fewer, and were required to preface each remark with "Mr. Jones." He also came up with a salute, and asked his students to salute each other, even when outside of class.

More or less, students from all over the school joined. They're grades improved because of participation in the group movement, and were each individually tasked with little projects (create a group flag, etc.). By the third day of the project, it got out of hand, and students were reporting to Mr. Jones as if he was an omnipotent leader, and even got students in trouble who didn't follow the rules. The experiment ended with Mr. Jones unveiling the face of their true leader, and proceeded to show a portrait of Adolf Hitler. He explained that the experiment meant to show the sense of superiority German citizens felt during the Nazi period, and how they could have turned a blind eye to Nazi wrongdoing as a "for the good of the group" mentality.

Here are two clips of a movie based on this experiment. It embellishes a little, adding in how group members attacked those who did not join. This experiment really reminded me of Jane Elliot's "Eye of the Storm" study, and shows reminders of what ingroup bias is. Furthermore, it shows the real normative social influence that can occur on students. Students got really invested into this movement, and showed classic blind obediance to authority.






Shawn Xu
A08368140