Zimbardo shows how most evil comes from hierarchy

Stanford Prison Experiment. This is an excerpt of The Evilness of Power http://www.archive.org/details/mr1001nightsTheEvilnessofPower a documentary-montage I did in 2008 examining the effects of hierarchy on individuals, society and the world at large.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• psychology
• Philip
• zimbardo

[ayoopdog]

@windtwist you're missing the point of this experiment.

[randomistaken]

"Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself." - Participant in the Milgram Experiment.

[ceremony1372]

im curious- given that the "good" prisoners turned bad given the circumstances can't it be applied to real life prisons?. i mean the control in real life prisons is likely to produce some form of deviance. would'nt prisons be making good prisoners not good citizens. therefore no reforming is taking place on a large scale just reproduction of crime.

[pmarceau]

@TOMHYLE88 We can't even rule ourselves properly all of the time.

[TOMHYLE88]

@nbmufc94 What's so interesting about that is that we continue to give people power.

[TOMHYLE88]

@karinakeys maybe especially if they are sane; the subject of the experiment was normal people, and frighteningly the circumstances were fairly normal, too, within society.  Human beings are not fit to excercise power over each other.

[katjaaaaaaaaaah]

@windtwist this isn't about simulating a jail, it's just a way to give some people the power and to divest the freedom of others to see what happens

[oscarlovesfrancine]

Zimbardo told them they were supposed to make the prisoners feel oppressed, that was the guards job. The actually spoke to one of the guards telling him he had to be more oppressive. There were no rules for the guards to follow except no physical violence. That prisoner who was yelling that he wanted out was NOT let out by Dr. Zimbardo at that point. His book the Lucifer Effect is really interesting, but the study turned completely unethical. The prisoners did fight back initially.

[rgur90x]

@nbmufc94 Yeah, nothing new there. but what is interesting about this experiment is how the ,,prisoners" completely adapted to their roles. several prisoners where allowed to leave and thus had no right to get payed anymore and yet they STAYED.

[nbmufc94]

Its simple, people will abuse power, whats so interesting about that?