Some education fot the children on the board.Follow

I know there is a German movie based on that.. forget the name of it though. I hadn't realized it was based on a real life experiment.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

My ex loved to use that as an example when she got into similiar conversations as this one with no nothing halfwits like the lot of you.

Edited, Wed Oct 27 17:24:13 2004 by GitSlayer

Your kind of an *** aren't you smasharoo. You never have anything nice to say. Each post I read from you is full of bile and anger. You are rude and arrogant.

WoW! Look at the smart one!

Is that what them dark boys call you when you work the BBQ sauce in Chili's kitchen?

The other good psychological experiment that would be pertinent to today would be... Stanford Prison Experiment.

Why, you ask? The answer is that if you can't see the connection, you're retarded.

Probably more, since I'm far too lazy to read past five posts most of the time, especially when it's all more or less "w0ah d00d iz cul" or "Hi, I'm a repube. That's all I had to say".

Anyway, Wikipedia is cooler than the official site.

Edited, Wed Oct 27 18:00:49 2004 by RPZip

Snake Handlers are the bestest.

They lay bare all of the ludicrousness of Christanity in one nice little slack jawed yokel package.

So... what, stand-up comedians are God?

I've always had an issue with the "how far will people go" type experiements. While I agree that they do provide some interesting insights into human behavior, I don't think you can blanketly conclude that any individual will do things like that in a real world situation.

The problem is that no matter how well you set up the experiment, at least in the cases of the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Yale Torture Experiment, the people involved knew they were not in a "real world" setting.

In the torture experiment, the "teacher" knows that the whole thing is an experiement. Even though he's not aware that he's the one being observed and tested, at some fundamental level, he know's that this is a controlled environment, and naturally assumes that nothing "bad" will happen. This is reinforced when the "observer" continually tells the teacher that he takes responsiblity for the test, and that failing to follow through will violate the conditions of the test. Those signing up for an experiment like that go in not knowing what to expect, or what is or is not acceptable. They kinda assume they aren't going to understand what's going on, and put much more faith in those running the experiment then someone will in a real world situation.

Contrast that to a "real world" situation, where say a police deputy is asked to administer shocks to a subject being questioned. He's going to know that this isn't something everyone agreed to. He's going to know that this is "wrong". He's going to know that this isn't just an experiment. He's not going to assume that this is contolled and above board. Most importantly, prior to being put into that situation, he presumably already has a very good idea of what "normal" and "controlled" within the context of his job is and would know that this is something well out of the normal scope of his job.


Same thing with the Prison experiment. You tossed 9 guys into the roll of guard, but gave them no training or experience at being guards. There's no structure or mentoring involved. They're going to do the things that they "think" guards should do. Since they are going in knowing that this is an experiment on the effects of prison, they likely played it way up, in the same way inexperienced actors will overplay rolls. With no "real" guards with experience in how to legitimately handle prisoners, they don't have any sort of natural bounds. Additionally, the fact that this is an experiment and they know that it's an experiment, will naturally make them feel freer to do things then someone would in a real job where there are real consequences for violating rules/rights/whatever.


What you should really get out of these types of experiment is that the environment someone is in will have a huge affect on how they behave at a task. It's not about individual ethics, but group morality. If the group you are in overwhelmingly finds a particular action acceptable, then over time, so will you. If you are the new guy at a prison, and you are raised in a culture that doesn't push rights, and you find that all the other guys at the prison abuse the prisoners daily, then you'll likely do it as well. The same guy raised in an environment with firm ideas of ritght and wrong (and presumably trained in what is right and wrong on the job), will be vastly more likely to blow the whistle on the other guards.

When folks compare these types of behaviors to **** Germany and the abuses in the camps, they're missing one key element. Those people had largely lived in a culture that has propogandized various ideas for a couple decades prior to those events occuring. A new guard at a death camp would already have been indoctrinated into the idea that the prisoners there were bad people and had no rights. He probably already hated them for one reason or another. He certainly was not taught they they had equal rights, or trained in what was acceptable and not acceptable as a guard. Hence, it would be easy to get him to abuse the prisoners. Additionally, he lived in a society where he had no open recourse. The atrocities were condoned by the government. Where would he go? Who does he expose this stuff to? no one. Whereas the same guy living in a society with laws against such things and a general sense that all people have rights will have a much easier time making a decision to do something about it.


It's not really as simple as having someone in authority tell you to do something. You have to believe that that something is "acceptable" within the rules surrounding the activity as well. In the case of an experiment, they assume that the experiment has been approved, and so it must not violate any laws or rights. If it was not presented as an experiment, you'd have a lot harder time finding people to follow through I'd suspect...

I saw the german version of the movie... The guy got pissed on, had to whipe toilets with his prison gown (Only thing he had to wear)...Was interesting.

Whoooosh!

Hear that gbaji? Thats you missin' the whole point....

...but I will be nice and point you in the right direction: despite knowing they are in a controled enviorment, despite knowing they are being watched, despite knowing they may be going beyond the normaly accepeted boundaries they still do the wrong thing because, they assume if it was wrong someone would stop them. Instead of staying within what they had always accepted as the norm they were willing to go beyond because someone, sometimes by omission, is telling them it is the right thing to do. I.E. I wont rock the boat, if it was wrong they would let me know right.... Right!?