We Do What We're Told

Following the Second World War, psychologists wanted to understand how so many ordinary Germans could have agreed to participate in the Nazis' atrocities.

Martin Sixsmith looks at their attempts to explain the banality of evil, including the controversial experiments of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. And he talks to Oxford Professor Miles Hewstone about how far social psychology has come in clarifying how we think and act within a group.

Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London.

Produced by Sara Parker

A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.