Well, here are the important psycho-social experiments that teach us about the way people think, but more than that they actually explain how our modern world works, and just how we got into this mess.
THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT
THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
THE ASCH EXPERIMENT
FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE EXPERIMENT
THE MONKEY LADDER
BONUS: MONKEY LADDER REDUX
So, there they are. Five of the most critical pieces of psychological research ever done, hopefully going forward nobody will be left in the dark when these concepts or experiments are referenced.
But the point of this article is not to just make you, the reader, understand these experiments...it is also meant to remind you that they do.
The people in charge, the elite, the 1%, "The Party". The powers that be -- or shouldn't be -- whatever you want to call them.
They know these experiments. They have studied them. They've probably replicated them countless times on grand scales and in unethical ways we can barely imagine. Who knows exactly what takes place in the dank dark dungeons of the deep state?
Just remember, they know how the human mind works.
They know they can make people do anything if they reassure them they won't be held responsible.
They know that they can rely on people to abuse any power they're given, OR believe they are powerless if they're treated that way.
They know that peer pressure will change a lot of people's minds even in the face of undeniable reality, especially if you make them feel completely alone.
They know that if you offer people only a small reward for completing a task, they will make up their own psychological justification for taking it.
They know that people will mindlessly do whatever everyone else is doing without ever asking for a reason.
And they know that people will happily believe something that never happened if it is repeated often enough.
They know all of this. And they use that knowledge all the time -- All. The. Time.
Every commercial you see, every article you read, every movie they release, every item on the news, every "viral" social media post, every trending hashtag.
Every war. Every pandemic. Every headline.
All of them are constructed with these principles in mind to elicit specific emotional reactions that steer your behaviour and beliefs. That's how the media works, not to inform you, not to entertain you...but to control you.
And they have it down to a science. Always remember that.