The fundamental human need to belong comes from the desire to associate with others, to cooperate, to accept group norms. However, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) shows that the need to belong can also be perverted into excessive conformity, compliance, and in-group versus out-group hostility. The need for autonomy and control, the central forces toward self-direction and planning, can be perverted into an excessive exercise of power to dominate others or into learned helplessness.
(The Lucifer Effect, by Philip Zimbardo, 2007, Rider Books)
