Keynote: Authority, Conformity, Community

by Sandi Metz

The keynote presentation titled "Authority, Conformity, Community" by Sandi Metz at the Keep Ruby Weird 2015 event explores the profound influence of authority and social dynamics on individual behavior within a community context. Metz emphasizes that while community provides comfort, our autonomy is often undermined by conformity and obedience to authority. The talk is structured around three significant studies in social psychology, demonstrating the intricate ways human behavior is shaped by societal pressures.

Key Points Discussed:
- Community Understanding: Metz reflects on the collective identity within a community and the illusion this creates regarding personal autonomy.
- Influence of Research: She asserts the importance of being aware of psychological research that reveals how we are shaped by others, often without realization.
- Experiment 1: Asch's Conformity Study (1950s): A line length experiment revealing that individuals often conform to incorrect group judgments, even when they know the right answer, showcasing the power of group pressure.
- Experiment 2: Milgram’s Obedience Study (1961): Illustrates how ordinary individuals can commit acts against their moral beliefs under authoritative pressure, as evidenced by participants administering painful electric shocks to others, with two-thirds proceeding to maximum voltage despite the apparent suffering.
- Experiment 3: Bystander Effect (Darley and Latane, 1970s): Investigated group behavior in emergencies, demonstrating that when more bystanders are present, individuals are less likely to act, highlighting the importance of personal responsibility in collective settings.
- Implications for Open Source Community: Metz draws parallels between the experiments and practices in open-source software communities, stressing the need for individuals to stand out and act against harmful group tendencies.

Conclusions and Takeaways:
- Awareness of social influences can empower individuals to counteract negative behaviors stemming from conformity.
- Encouraging individual action and moral responsibility can shift group dynamics positively.
- The necessity of fostering environments where individual voices are valued over collective apathy is paramount.
- Engaging in open dialogue and seeking help can counteract the bystander effect in community settings.

Metz encourages attendees to reflect on their roles within their communities and to actively work against complacency in group situations, hoping to cultivate a supportive environment that recognizes and values each individual's contributions.

00:00:11 So I'm giving a talk this morning that I've been wanting to give for a long time. It's interesting because Aaron just said that if you talk to him in public, he should use his real name because people won't understand. It's true for all of us, right? I don't know about you, but I have that feeling when I walk into a conference. For instance, when I got out of the Uber this morning and saw that crowd of us on the sidewalk, it relaxed me. Thank you; these are people who understand. It's very cool that we're a community, absolutely, but we're also a collection of individuals. We think of ourselves, and we like to think of ourselves as autonomous human beings who make our own decisions uninfluenced by others.

00:00:40 The weird truth, if you will, is that we are incredibly influenced by everyone else, and we're fundamentally unaware of the shape that influence takes. In many ways, we do not understand our motivations, and we don't know why we make the decisions we make. Some of you may know that I'm a recovering psychology student. Like many of us, I studied psychology, and I was always a little bit suspicious about what was going on, but I never lost my interest in research. So there's a bunch of research that I think matters a lot to us that people are vaguely familiar with but they don't really know the details.

00:01:12 I'm going to show you today three experiments. There's a lot of comprehensive film clips here; it's a little bit like science class, but that doesn't mean you can sleep while the film is going on. So I'm going to show you three experiments and talk about what they proved about human nature, and then we're going to discuss how that applies to us as practitioners of open-source software. The one other thing I want to tell you before I get started is that I'm insufficiently clever. I didn't realize when they promised me this lab coat that they were going to put whatever I told them on the pocket.

00:01:48 You might know that lots of people have cool names, but I am just Sandi. I have a bunch of Sharpies, and since I'm a little bit sick, I might leave pretty soon after this talk and infect you all. But I invite you to come help me be more clever on my coat once I get off stage. Just ask me first; there's a lot of colors!

00:02:10 Alright, so experiment number one. This was done in the 1950s by a guy named Solomon Asch. It's a really well-known and classic experiment in social psychology, referred to as the line length study. Here’s how it works: they tell the experimental subjects that it’s a test of visual perception. Your task is to choose the line A, B, or C that is the same length as the reference line.

00:02:40 I have still photos from the original experiments, but they're of such bad resolution that I didn't blow them up very much. In the experiment, this is the experimenter, and this is a team full of purported subjects. The truth is, of these seven people, only one is actually a subject; the others are Confederates. Here's a close-up of the look on one subject’s face. They recreated this experiment in the seventies, and I have a little film of that, so please take a look.

00:03:14 Subjects give their judgments here, but during the third trial, something happens. You need to note the experiment begins uneventfully. So, the person you see here is the experimental subject, the confused guy. The experiment begins, and there’s about a third of the group that agrees with the wrong line; they reason they’re the people who conformed. They conducted eighteen trials in this experiment, out of which twelve had their pairs also giving the incorrect answers.

00:04:20 About a third of the time, the experimental subject actually went along with the group. So, that's experiment number one: Asch and conformity. A decade later, we see the second experiment, which was done by Stanley Milgram. This was an infamous study on obedience, done around 1961 when Adolf Eichmann was on trial for war crimes.

00:05:00 Eichmann's boss, Reinhard Heydrich, charged him with managing the logistics of the deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe. Eichmann carried out his job with vigor and enthusiasm, yet during his trial, he provided no heartfelt apology or expressions of remorse. He offered statements of a man who did not feel responsible because he was just doing his job. So, in this environment, the question arose: are these people evil, or are they merely victims of their circumstances?

00:05:56 Milgram wanted to understand how ordinary people would behave in similar circumstances, and so he devised what became known as the shock experiments. He advertised for experimental subjects, offering them monetary compensation. When people signed up, they received a small amount of cash, plus car fare to come to the basement of a building at Yale University. There, they were told that they would be part of an experiment.

00:06:37 Two subjects were supposed to show up, but one of them was actually a Confederate. The subjects thought they were both participants, but the other was part of the experiment. They drew to see who would teach and who would learn, but the lot was rigged. The experimental subject always became the teacher. Their task as the teacher was to teach the learner a series of word pairs. For example, if the experimenter said 'blue', the learner needed to pick the correct word from a given list.

00:07:23 The layout looked like this: there was a room where the learner was, and the teacher and the experimenter were in a separate room. The teacher could hear the learner from the other room; they could see a machine that simulated electric shocks. Now, nobody was actually shocked, but they had to make the machine look very believable.

00:08:03 The machine had various gauges with labels such as 'strong shock', 'very strong shock', and 'extreme shock'. I have a film from the original experiment from the 60s that shows the reactions of the subjects. It’s important to note that no one was harmed during the experiments. The distress of the teachers was real because they believed they were administering real shocks.

00:08:55 I'm going to show you two film clips from this experiment. The first one is short, which will give you a feel for the experiment. If you find that you don't want to listen to the second one, I know you can't leave, but I'll warn you when it's about to begin so you can cover your ears until it's done. Here we go with the first clip.

00:09:55 In this scene, a man is administered shocks up to 450 volts, and he starts pleading for the experiment to stop. The distress is audible as he cries for help. However, the experimenter insists that they continue. At 300 volts, the learner says he won't answer anymore, and after 350 volts, there's no response at all. The experiment goes on, and the teacher continues to administer shocks despite feeling uneasy.

00:10:56 The second clip is more intense; it lasts two and a half minutes and shows a subject obeying the experimenter's commands, even as it is visibly distressing for him. The interesting aspect of this is how the man administering the shocks is shown to be under great pressure, illustrating the power of authority in dictating behavior.

00:11:14 Stanley Milgram’s study demonstrated that a staggering two-thirds of the subjects shocked all the way to 450 volts. When predicting these outcomes, psychologists thought that almost everyone would stop when the learner demanded to stop the experiment. They expected that only 0.01% of subjects would continue to such extreme levels. In fact, two-thirds of the subjects went all the way.

00:11:51 The conclusions drawn from this study led to serious ethical considerations, emphasizing the need for institutions to establish ethical review boards. These boards determine whether an experimental protocol is ethical. Regardless, this experiment compelled researchers to examine human behavior deeply, revealing that pressure from authority could induce normal individuals to act against their moral beliefs.

00:12:38 So, just in case you think that this only happened in black-and-white days, there was a recreation of this study for a British TV show in 2006 called 'The Heist'. I have another clip for you that illustrates this point. It features actors pretending to be bystanders in various situations, responding to requests for help and ignoring them.

00:14:00 In the show, a woman collapses on the street, and despite numerous people walking by, no one stops to help her. However, the moment one person does step forward to aid her, the bystanders begin to follow suit, demonstrating the profound influence of individual action on collective behavior. This leads us to our next experiment, the 'smoke-filled room' study.

00:15:08 Conducted by Darley and Latane in the 1970s, the research focused on bystander intervention, provoked in part by the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City. Her death and the subsequent media report that 38 witnesses did nothing sparked outrage concerning social apathy. Even though later studies showed that many did intervene, the stigma of inaction within groups persisted.

00:15:46 In their experiment, they had participants filling out forms in a waiting room when smoke began to billow in. The critical point was that the other people in the room were actors, and they ignored the smoke completely, leaving the lone participant unsure of whether to react. What the study found was compelling: when alone, people tended to leave the room immediately, but in groups, they stayed put.

00:16:15 On average, people stayed rooted until approximately thirteen minutes passed. The findings established what we now call the 'bystander effect', highlighting that the more onlookers present during an emergency, the less likely it is that anyone will come to assist. This phenomenon has implications for various situations, including instances of bullying among children.

00:17:45 As a species, we are hard-wired to conform and obey. If we believe that others will act, we are more likely to remain inactive ourselves. This is particularly relevant in open-source communities, where it's important to stand out from the crowd and volunteer to help—breaking from the norm.

00:18:30 So, how can we combat these tendencies? Merely being aware of the existence of these social influences can empower you. You need to understand these dynamics in order to counter the likelihood of conforming to unhealthy group behaviors. Each of you needs to act as if you are the only one present, using your individual strengths to make a positive impact.

00:19:40 Finally, as researchers and practitioners, we must inoculate ourselves against groupthink, conformity, and followership that ignores our moral compasses. Knowing when to step up, ask for help, or volunteer your assistance can shift the dynamic in a room. If no one else is stepping in, being the first to act can inspire others to join in—or, conversely, being part of a crowd can lead to inaction.

00:20:50 So, it’s crucial to practice asking for help as individuals rather than as part of a group. If you’re experiencing bystander apathy, point to someone and explicitly ask for help. This can turn the tide and make it easier for others to follow. We have to retrain our brain responses to initiate action in group settings where everyone is waiting for someone else to step forward.

00:21:48 All of this boils down to understanding that collective behavior doesn’t always reflect our individual capabilities. We’re here to work together, and hopefully, with this awareness, we can foster an environment where each individual's opinion is valued and heard.

00:22:00 Lastly, I want to say thank you for being a part of this conversation. I truly believe in the good intentions of individuals and hope that by fostering open dialogues, we can create a supportive, enriching community that values every voice. Please come up to me afterward if you're interested in more discussions about the experiments, the outcomes, or to grab a Sharpie for my lab coat. Thank you!