the psychology of power/authority.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Does anyone have any good sources in regards to this topic? I know of the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment (which are the two most famous power experiments, it seems), but any other scientific info would be helpful.

[Volcanicity]

I dont have any scientific info,but theres a book called The Wave by todd strasser about an experiment involving pupils in a school in the US.Theres also a great german film based on the book but set in Germany,also called the Wave.

[Widerstand]

You could read Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology Of Fascism", he's a German psychologist and Marxist. I think it deals with Authority/Power, too.

Machiavelli's "The Prince" is a classic book on power, especially gaining and keeping it I suppose, but I'm not so sure if that's exactly what you're looking for.

Some psychological articles that might interest you: Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment (http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/war-peace-and-role-of-power-in-sherifs.php); Essentials of Group Psychology (http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-groups-form-conform-then-warp-our-decision-making-productivity-and-creativity.php); and this talk (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html) by the leader of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Check out PsyBlog in general, they have a bunch of articles on group dynamics and conformity.


I dont have any scientific info,but theres a book called The Wave by todd strasser about an experiment involving pupils in a school in the US.Theres also a great german film based on the book but set in Germany,also called the Wave.

This too.

There's also a German movie about the Stanford Prison Experiment, called "Das Experiment" (2001).

[JazzRemington]

The Milgram and Stanford experiments are hardly good reads for studies on authority and power. The Milgram experiment was repeated with the participants in the same room as the people they were to shock. The result was that the participants were less likely to administer shocks than if the two people were in different rooms. As for the Stanford experiment, it was filled with glaring errors and a lack of controls for participant personality and a complete failure to explain why most guards weren't overly cruel and did favors for some prisoners.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The Milgram and Stanford experiments are hardly good reads for studies on authority and power. The Milgram experiment was repeated with the participants in the same room as the people they were to shock. The result was that the participants were less likely to administer shocks than if the two people were in different rooms. As for the Stanford experiment, it was filled with glaring errors and a lack of controls for participant personality and a complete failure to explain why most guards weren't overly cruel and did favors for some prisoners.

Do you have any suggestions?

[JazzRemington]

Do you have any suggestions?

I didn't study power and authority much (aside from Weber's conceptions). My suggestion would be to talk to a reference librarian who specializes in psychology or a psychology professor if you want to study power and authority in a psychological context. There's probably some school papers that were written about what you are looking for. The citations could prove useful. Also, if you are in school or part of a library you may have access to journal databases. You could try using them, especially PsychInfo.

But, I did find the following:

http://ispp.org/bibliographies/apbiblio.html

Large bibliography on authoritarianism, but its somewhat dated and a lot of the items are in Italian.

[Dean]

Escape From Freedom
The Authoritarian Personality

[blake 3:17]

I'm unsure that there is any very clear particular theory that works. There's good empirical work on particular situations, here's a link to Seymour Hersh on Abu Ghraib http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact

There's some literature on serial killers that's been published as popular true crime books that do examine the most nihilistic, fascist, and evil behaviours. Fred and Rosemary West are a horrifying example. There's pleanty online about them and one or two not bad books.

A lot of theory stuff refrenced above is specifically about fascism.

Some people have mentioned Frankfurt School stuff which is often fairly interesting. Foucault provides a kind of philosophical social history of domination. Deleuze & Guattari pick up from him in interesting ways. Left Nietzchean thought has been better on this than most Marxist thinking.

The former Marxist, Norman Geras, has some very interesting writing about complicity with social injustice and abusive authority.