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Stanford Prison Experiment

UnityNow101

UnityNow101

Well-Known Member
On the heels of another thread dealing with an experiment that was seen as unethical by some people, I was wondering what people think about the Stanford Prisoner Experiment of 1971? The results are rather amazing and, like the Milgram Experiment, show how human beings can be led to do things that they would never believe themselves capable. The situation got so out of hand that the experiment had to be ended after only 6 days. The roles that they were playing were pre-defined and both the mock prisoners and mock guards understood that the other side were playing a role, making the results of the experiment even more disturbing. These kind of experiments show the darkest side of human nature and help us explain how our environment and the influence of others can shape our behavioral patterns...

Stanford prison experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
3.14

3.14

Well-Known Member
these kind of experiments make me believe there is a killswitch for civility
 
Alceste

Alceste

Vagabond
This experiment as well as the Milgram experiment make it quite obvious to me that ordinary people have nothing to gain from a coercive, centralised government. The heirarchy of authority we've created - along with incrementally increasing levels of immunity for unethical authorities - guarantees that each level will abuse the level below to some degree. The most glaring example is police brutality, which is common as dirt and represents the crack at the end of the whip of the chain of command.

There are ways to limit the abusiveness of powerful people, though. Legislation that limits the powers of law enforcement and government in favour of the privacy, autonomy, free association, free speech and physical safety of ordinary citizens is a good start, as long as it is enforced.

Also, strong local communities are somewhat resilient to abuse because friendly neighbours will tend to look our for one another.
 
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