I think the point of the Stanford Prison Experiment is that none of us really know what we’re capable of. I’m not sure I would call what they did being “a good team player.”

That said, I flatter myself that I am a curmudgeonly, self-righteous, sanctimonious know-it-all and I don’t give in easily to pressure from others.

I see myself as a good team player, but I am very sure I wouldn’t give in to doing things I don’t believe in. Nowadays. When I was 19 however, I only wanted to fit in. So, I guess it depends on maturity, and feeling self assure too, among other things.

I don’t think a good team player is a good team player if he/she just agrees with everyone else. That’s just enabling.

If it benefits the team there’s a lot I would do but I will absolutely not do anything unethical like steal or hurt someone.

Myself and another team mate had a break away at our game last week. I decided to pass it to him instead of taking the shot myself. We scored.

depends on what’s at stake… if there’s a high reward and probability of obtaining that reward I’ll be more willing to put up with more crap for the sake of success.

In companies it depends on the nature of a task whether a team effort or an individual effort is more likely to produce exceptionally good results. Sometimes a task is given to a team, but an individual is more likely to succeed when dealing with it alone (this only works for certain tasks). In this case the individual should stop being a team player for a while and bring in the team later, e.g. by asking for feedback. Linux as such wasn’t the result of a team. It was an individual. But the team, i.e. the open source community offered free testing and criticism. Then the movement grew and a team and a division of tasks was needed.

You mentioned “Stanford Prison Experiment”. There’s also the “Third Wave”.

From Wikipedia: The Third Wave was an experimental demonstration of nazism movement undertaken by history teacher Ron Jones with sophomore high school students attending his Contemporary History class as part of a study of Nazi Germany. The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, during first week of April 1967. Jones, unable to explain to his students how the German populace could claim ignorance of the extermination of the Jewish people, decided to show them instead. Jones started a movement called “The Third Wave” and convinced his students that the movement is to eliminate democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave

There is also the Milgram experiment. Very interesting. That, the Stanford experiment and the Third wave experiment implies that what happened in 1930’s germany can happen anywhere.

Fact is, if you look at it. The state of mind of americans after what happened in 9/11, the media circus, nationalist speeches, and the support for almost anything in the name of patriotism feels a bit similar.

I am not calling americans nazis, I just see similarities of the pressure of group psychology to push people to support questionable actions.