Essentially, yes. Although the group doesn’t necessarily have to pressure an individual. Individuals are usually more than willing to be part of a group, and adjust themselves to that group. There are dozens of examples: people willing to offer their freedoms to join a religion or cult, people willing to put their life on the line for their country, people feeling superior to others not belonging to The Group.

In the prison experiment you didn’t just have a no-restrictions on human cruelty and practical problems with applying absolute power, but also two Groups: the Prisoners and the Wardens. Worst of both worlds, if you ask me.

For me this is only a part of the explanation, there’s got to be more to it then that. In the experiment, and real life imprisonment, the prisoners got de-humanised so they were obedient to the guards. Achieving this and getting people in the state in which they were, guards, prisoners and in fact the researchers themselves was that easy, only took them SIX days. That is the scary-part, take a sane “normal” human being and condition him to act in that either sadistic or obedient way. I can’t help wondering what I do in such a situation or in other extreem situations for that matter. I think I can’t find the answer untill I am in that situation, neither can anybody else for that matter.