The Psychology of Resistance
What famous experiments really teach us about fighting authoritarianism today.
In my last article, I detailed how U.S. President Donald Trump misunderstands the fundamental truth about human nature. He projects his own transactional worldview onto all of us, imagining that we're all determined to step on others to rise. I pointed out that our true nature is represented by the millions who have taken to the streets to speak out against injustices, by people like Mahmoud Kahlil (finally free!), and the mothers and fathers facing deportation whose children cry out as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials abduct them outside schools. Our fundamental nature is rooted in care for one another. We are not killers but carers.
But what do we do with that information? How does that help us resist what's happening now?
To answer this, I want to talk about psychology, my disciplinary home, and what we can learn from some foundational studies about manipulation, power, and resistance. If you've taken psychology in high school or college, you've likely learned about these three infamous experiments: Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, Sherif's Robber's Cave Experiment, and Milgram's shock experiments.
If evil is inevitable, then resistance is pointless.
The rudimentary takeaway from each might sound like this: Ordinary people will do extraordinarily evil things in certain circumstances. This conclusion reinforces a cynical view of humanity that is both lazy and tragically disempowering.
Cynicism about human nature, fueled by the findings from these experiments, is lazy because it stops us from asking harder questions about systems, power, and how change actually happens. If we're all monsters deep down, then there's no point in organizing, no point in building better institutions, no point in fighting for justice. We can just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, I guess this is who we are," and watch each other burn.
This kind of fatalism is exactly what those in power want. It lets us all off the hook, we don't have to show up for each other, we don't have to do the difficult work of dismantling harmful systems and speaking truth to power, we don't have to take responsibility for preventing the continuation of harm. If evil is inevitable, then resistance is pointless.
The cynical view, supported by the "findings" of these experiments, is dangerous propaganda that serves authoritarians.
What Really Happened in Zimbardo's, Sherif's, and Milgram's Experiments
Let's first correct the record on each of these studies, because the actual truth reveals something very different about human nature and gives us a roadmap for resistance.
Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment supposedly showed that people become sadistic when given power over others. In 1971, Zimbardo recreated a prison environment in Stanford's basement, paying students to act as guards or prisoners. It quickly devolved into what appeared to be guards relishing their role as violent dominators, torturing and abusing the "prisoners." Zimbardo, who had given himself the role of the warden, allowed it all to happen and instigated much of it.
Zimbardo, Sherif, and Milgram all built their careers on lies about human nature that serve authoritarians.
While the narrative pushed by Zimbardo, that good people will become evil in certain roles, made him famous, the truth revealed by the experiment is that we will try our best to meet the parameters of an assignment that are articulated to us. The students were acting because they wanted to make Zimbardo happy. They weren't revealing some dark truth about human nature; they were trying to be good research participants, following what they thought were the experimenter's expectations.
Sherif's Robber's Cave Experiment claimed to show how easily children form hostile groups. Sherif brought boys to summer camp and arbitrarily organized them into two teams with the exciting names of the Rattlers and the Eagles. The story, according to Sherif, goes that they quickly degenerated into "wicked, disturbed, and vicious bunches of youngsters," burning flags, raiding camps, and inventing weapons made of socks and rocks.
When psychologist Gina Perry dug into the archives, she found that this was a manufactured narrative with the boys actually wanting to be friends with each other. To get the outcome Sherif wanted to report, the one that could make him famous, he had to manipulate everything, rigging games, tearing down tents themselves and blaming the other group, stopping the boys when they tried to make peace symbols for their T-shirts. When the boys figured out they were being manipulated, the experiment collapsed.
Milgram's shock experiments supposedly proved that 65% of people will follow evil orders, delivering potentially fatal electric shocks to strangers when told to do so by an authority figure. For decades, this has been cited as proof that we're all potential Nazis, just waiting for the right circumstances.
But when researchers finally got access to Milgram's archives, they discovered he was more director than scientist. Anyone who deviated from his script was bullied and coerced. The man in the lab coat would make eight or nine attempts to force people to continue, even coming to blows with participants who tried to stop.
Not only that but a large percentage (44%) of the participants didn't believe the study to be real, they didn't actually think they were delivering real shocks. Among those who did believe the shocks were real, the majority refused to continue.
So how did Milgram get his results? Psychologists Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher discovered that participants weren't submitting to authority; instead they were trying to help with what they believed was important scientific research. When told their contribution would benefit science, participants expressed relief: "I am happy to have been of service" and "Continue your experiments by all means as long as good can come of them." It turns out people weren't mindlessly obedient. People were being tricked into thinking they were doing good.
The Real Lessons: How to Resist
What can we learn from these manipulated experiments? The true lesson isn't about human evil, it's about how some people will do anything to establish fame and power for themselves. Zimbardo, Sherif, and Milgram all built their careers on lies about human nature that serve authoritarians.
But buried in their own data is the real story of resistance. When researchers analyzed who successfully resisted in Milgram's experiments, they found three key tactics:
- Talk to the victim—Connect with those being harmed;
- Remind those in power of their responsibility—Hold leaders accountable; and
- Repeatedly refuse to continue–Don't give up after the first "no."
We can develop these capacities through practice and education. This is one reason we must fiercely protect our universities; they are critical sites where communication skills, critical thinking, and moral courage can be cultivated. It is not surprising that college students are often on the frontlines of fighting for justice, from the civil rights movement to anti-war protests to today's demonstrations for Palestinian liberation and immigrant rights. It's why being in community and knowing our neighbors is a necessary strategy of survival and resistance. It's evidence that calling our representatives and holding them accountable actually matters. We can resist questionable authority just as those participants in Milgram's studies who refused to continue did. And we can get better at it.
Why This Matters in Trump's America
My discipline of psychology has repeatedly told us lies that benefit men seeking power. As I shared in my previous article, Trump is exploiting a myth about us being fundamentally evil because it serves him to have us believing that, even though we are actually wired toward care. When we find ourselves in situations where we're asked to dehumanize someone, to cause someone harm, we now know what to do. When psychologists peeked into the actual archives of these famous experiments, that was the truth that was revealed.
As Trump's administration invents cruel ways to tear apart our communities, as they bomb Iran to distract us from domestic cruelties, as they tell us that entire populations are threats to justify dragging us into wars, we must remember the true lessons of these experiments. Powerful men will mislead us and try to convince us to act against our nature. Elon Musk and others who hoard wealth and power tell us that empathy is weakness, that caring is "civilizational suicide," that we must choose between compassion and survival. But the protesters and a few brave lawmakers standing between ICE agents and families know better. They understand what those manipulated experiments actually prove: that our instinct is to refuse to cause harm, to protect each other, to resist when asked to participate in cruelty.
Taking a lesson from the real truth behind these experiments, we must always reach out to those who are being hurt, know them, see them as fully human, refuse to let anyone talk us into dehumanizing our fellow community members. We must relentlessly remind those in power of their responsibility to the collective good. And we must refuse, refuse, refuse to be complicit in systems of harm, no matter how they're justified to us.
Now is the time to reach out to our trans community members under attack. Now is the time to create mutual aid networks and join ICE watches in our communities. Now is the time to call our senators and refuse to let this country be dragged into war with Iran. Now is the time to refuse to give up our democracy, to refuse to turn on our immigrant community members, to hold on tight to our LGBTQ beloveds. Keep protesting. Keep refusing. Keep holding on to one another. Keep being true to our human nature.
