OT: Stanford Prison Experiment

[Degen]

Good read

One interesting finding was the different roles people take on when given power (the ability to dictate the lives of prisoners in this case).

Some guards helped the prisoners, others were neutral or fair...and still others took on a mean personality that drew some kind of sick pleasure manipulating the inmates and the power they had over them.

These guards would lock threads like nazi's...i mean, uh. yeah.

[ChrisV]

There's also a Wikipedia article.

To me it's questionable whether the Stanford experiment shows the things that some people claim it shows, e.g. that the capacity to mistreat people under our power is in all of us. Sadistic tendencies were only displayed by one third of the guards in the Stanford experiment.

Since none of the guards really stood up to the sadism, however, a better conclusion is that people are willing to follow evil orders if issued by someone perceived as an authority figure. This is also the conclusion of the possibly even more disturbing Milgram Experiment. They sure did some unethical experiments back in the day.

On the same subject, less disturbing and more just amusing are the Asch Conformity Experiments.

[bawcerelli]

there's another experiment that's based on the stanford prison experiment in the current issue of scientific american mind. there also happens to be an article on the thrill of danger, which goes on a bit about poker and gambling.

[axeshigh]

There's a german movie inspired by the experiment, 'Das Experiment'. Great movie, worth watching.

[ilya]

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This is also the conclusion of the possibly even more disturbing Milgram Experiment. They sure did some unethical experiments back in the day.


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These experiments may have been unethical (although personally I think they were not), but at least they were also memorable, influential, an useful. Sorry, one of my keys isn't working.

yeah, that has got to be my vote for one of the most eye opening studies ever done.

Its almost all I remember from psych 101.

[schwza]

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This is also the conclusion of the possibly even more disturbing Milgram Experiment. They sure did some unethical experiments back in the day.


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These experiments may have been unethical (although personally I think they were not), but at least they were also memorable, influential, an useful. Sorry, one of my keys isn't working.

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i think one of the best parts of this study is that a bunch of psychologists were surveyed and asked what % of subjects would deliver the max shock. they guessed something very small, like 1 in 1000. the real number was like 45%. i'm sure i have every detail wrong, but i'm too lazy to fix it.

[Jbrochu]

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Since none of the guards really stood up to the sadism, however, a better conclusion is that people are willing to follow evil orders if issued by someone perceived as an authority figure. This is also the conclusion of the possibly even more disturbing Milgram Experiment. They sure did some unethical experiments back in the day.

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I just saw the original film created during the Milgram Experiment (my instructor said that you can no longer obtain the film, just a recreation of it) in my Sociology class. It is unbelievable.

[pooh74]

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yeah, that has got to be my vote for one of the most eye opening studies ever done.

Its almost all I remember from psych 101.

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lol! me2...and it was my major. (maybe we covered it in Social psych too though)

[Rduke55]

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yeah, that has got to be my vote for one of the most eye opening studies ever done.

Its almost all I remember from psych 101.

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lol! me2...and it was my major. (maybe we covered it in Social psych too though)

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That experiment was seriously f-ed.

I went to a talk by Zimbardo, who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, and he looked like satan. Creepy goatee (or is it a Van Dyke?) and everything.