http://arlenegoldbard.com/2004/05/07/prison-addiction/ culture, politics and spirituality Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:46:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://arlenegoldbard.com/2004/05/07/prison-addiction/#comment-64625 Arlene Goldbard » Blog Archive » Human Nature Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:53:43 +0000 http://new.arlenegoldbard.com/?p=4#comment-64625 [...] The oft-cited behavorial studies of Stanley Milgram in the early 60s and Philip Zimbardo in 1971 demonstrated how ordinary, well-meaning people, placed in a tightly controlled situation in which figures of authority command their obedience, commit atrocious acts. When you and I imaginatively cast ourselves in their places, we feel sure we’d be the ones to stand up and say no. But these studies suggest that such certainty is self-deception, because almost everyone goes along. In the case of Zimbardo’s study, even the professors running the experiment were caught up; it took horrified outsiders, visiting the site, to call them back to awareness and shut down the experiment. [...] [...] The oft-cited behavorial studies of Stanley Milgram in the early 60s and Philip Zimbardo in 1971 demonstrated how ordinary, well-meaning people, placed in a tightly controlled situation in which figures of authority command their obedience, commit atrocious acts. When you and I imaginatively cast ourselves in their places, we feel sure we’d be the ones to stand up and say no. But these studies suggest that such certainty is self-deception, because almost everyone goes along. In the case of Zimbardo’s study, even the professors running the experiment were caught up; it took horrified outsiders, visiting the site, to call them back to awareness and shut down the experiment. [...]

]]> http://arlenegoldbard.com/2004/05/07/prison-addiction/#comment-941 Arlene Goldbard » Blog Archive » Against The Grain Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:27:33 +0000 http://new.arlenegoldbard.com/?p=4#comment-941 [...] In the compass of an hour, Gibney and his collaborators touched down on many of social psychology’s most important formal experiments (and “accidental” learning experiences): Stanley Milgram’s famous early-sixties experiment in obedience, in which 2/3 of his subjects obeyed an authority figure even though they believed themselves to be administering near-fatal shocks to others; Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 experiment in which student “guards” quickly descended into brutality when placed in a situation of dominance over fellow student “prisoners” (this is one of the first things I wrote about when I started this blog just over two years ago); the 1964 New York murder of Kitty Genovese, where 38 witnesses stood at their windows watching her be fatally stabbed; and more recent events, leading up to the dehumanizing acts at Abu Ghraib, which perfectly reproduced the results of Zimbardo’s prison experiment. [...] [...] In the compass of an hour, Gibney and his collaborators touched down on many of social psychology’s most important formal experiments (and “accidental” learning experiences): Stanley Milgram’s famous early-sixties experiment in obedience, in which 2/3 of his subjects obeyed an authority figure even though they believed themselves to be administering near-fatal shocks to others; Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 experiment in which student “guards” quickly descended into brutality when placed in a situation of dominance over fellow student “prisoners” (this is one of the first things I wrote about when I started this blog just over two years ago); the 1964 New York murder of Kitty Genovese, where 38 witnesses stood at their windows watching her be fatally stabbed; and more recent events, leading up to the dehumanizing acts at Abu Ghraib, which perfectly reproduced the results of Zimbardo’s prison experiment. [...]

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