Larc,
Thanks for sharing these studies with us. I would have enjoyed being a student in your class... I just love this stuff!!
Using teenagers, not long ago one of the newsmagazine shows (Dateline or maybe 20/20) did a demonstration that copied Asch's experiment that caused one kid to act in a way that he knew was wrong. I don't remember exactly what the test was, but I DO remember how deeply sad for him it made me feel. I really can't say why, only that the kid lacked enough strength to stand against the tide of peer pressure. I understand how that truth of human nature applies in a congregational setting involving men who are pressured to conform to decisions they know in their hearts are wrong. Elders are humans, too.
In Jr. High we briefly went over Zimbardo's study involving students that play-acted as either jailors or prisoners. The implication you pointed to, that the role you are in greatly affects your behavior, clearly applies in the case of elders. It would be good to make every single elder aware of these two studies. Of course, that would defeat the purpose of the governing body. As it is with the military, little is accomplished if everyone is a free thinker, able to decide on the importance of every directive.
As I mentioned to Ginny in the other thread, I don't judge the elders. Amnesian simply made the case that elders are accountable for what they do. Yes they are victims like everybody else, but they should be very aware of the implications of the two studies you have cited here. I wish I had the answer. I don't.
I was an active, believing Witness, never advancing above "publisher," for more than thirty years. Still, I tended to not act as an average publisher. I have a serious streak of non-conformity, rebellion, whatever you want to call it. Even so, I hate to think... and I mean that... I hate to think of the man I might have become had I reached elder status and lived under the pressure of the social influences these men studied.
If I had, I'd prefer to now be like my friend Danny and simply say, "I was wrong. I'm sorry. I will try to do better from here on out."