I'm guessing most ted talks reference ""science"" that can't be replicated as well. It's ironic that this of happening immediately before we enter the ai fueled post-truth era.
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The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
81–90 of 127 posts
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zimbardo’s claim was “normal people could behave in pathological ways even without the external pressure of an experimenter-authority.” In fact what the experiment showed is that people can behave in pathological ways when Phil Zimbardo coaxes them into it.
How many guards were there, and how many were "interfered with" (as you put it)? We also have the real-life Nazi Germany experience, where 1000's of previously-normal people did unspeakable things. And of course the Japanese behavior in China before that. You might call these "natural experiments." With human social behavior it's just not possible to have a rigorously controlled experiment. Nor can you ever end up wi…
Those 1000 people were heavily coaxed into it. They were subject to years long propaganda painting ennemy as evil danger. That includes literal school system teaching them this. Propaganda had many facets including the idea that manly men must be without empathy toward enemy, that empathy is weakness and cruelty is strength.
A lot of those so-call normal people were literal Nazi party members who became such voluntarily. In particular, camps were run by SS - the elite of believers.
Literally nothing about Germany proves your thesis. Germany proves that it is possible to create political system under which you reward cruelty and consequently people become cruel. It shows that when politicians promote violence, violence can happen. It shows that when you punish opposition, opposition will be helpless.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
TED Talks are a disaster in general. Lots of charlatans and bad science. People should treat them aa entertainment, not as a reputable, fact-checked publication of science.
That paper towel guy was right on the money though and I use way less paper towels and use them more effectively now. No science required, just an old dude who had an idea he wanted to share. That's what TED should be, not anything authoritative or declarative. That is indeed their slogan "ideas worth spreading", they should really stick to that.
so funny. and I remember people commenting about how stupid and simple his talk was. and yet I think about it every time I use a public restroom.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a psychology researcher, but I think that the Milgram experiment has been fairly well replicated. Please anyone let me know if not. I personally found it to be non-obvious.
“Many of Milgram’s participants believed it to be impossible that the prestigious Yale University experimenter would allow real harm to be inflicted on an experimental subject. Although Milgram claimed that 75% of his participants thought they were administering painful shocks, Perry’s re-analysis of the data showed that “It’s more truthful to say that only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believ…
That's still a shocking (no pun intended) percentage of people willing to inflict what they think is pain on another human based merely on the orders of an authority which they are not truly obliged to follow. I imagine the percentage of willing participants would be even higher if they had a real reason to follow the orders, e.g. it was actually their job and/or they would be punished in some way for failing to follow orders, as was the case in Nazi Germany.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#85Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?
The momentous and scandalous discovery of evolution can only be matched in the field of psychology by the discovery of the unconscious. All of the other responses here do not come close in importance to those massive upheavals you listed.
What do you mean when you say "discovery of the unconscious"? Depending how you define it such an idea was explored since antiquity.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The momentous and scandalous discovery of evolution can only be matched in the field of psychology by the discovery of the unconscious. All of the other responses here do not come close in importance to those massive upheavals you listed.
What do you mean when you say "discovery of the unconscious"? Depending how you define it such an idea was explored since antiquity.
That's a fair point, but we should also note that the mighty thinker Aristotle speculated seminal theories of relativity, continental drift, and evolution. I mean Freud's discovery of the unconscious as OP presumably means the discoveries of Einstein, Wegener, and Darwin respectively. Freud's scientific conception of the unconscious was a breakthrough beyond his progenitors.
I'll only admit I've cheated a little: that Freud's contribution was a scientific one is not an assertion that is "generally regarded as correct." But Freud believed himself to be a scientist and frankly I agree. It's not like Einstein, Wegener, and Darwin are uncontested figures, but certainly Freud is much more so.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many guards were there, and how many were "interfered with" (as you put it)? We also have the real-life Nazi Germany experience, where 1000's of previously-normal people did unspeakable things. And of course the Japanese behavior in China before that. You might call these "natural experiments." With human social behavior it's just not possible to have a rigorously controlled experiment. Nor can you ever end up wi…
Those 1000 people were heavily coaxed into it. They were subject to years long propaganda painting ennemy as evil danger. That includes literal school system teaching them this. Propaganda had many facets including the idea that manly men must be without empathy toward enemy, that empathy is weakness and cruelty is strength. A lot of those so-call normal people were literal Nazi party members who became such voluntar…
Guards are coaxed to be tough: if you handle a dangerous criminal in a relaxed manner, they can try to escape killing you in the process.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many guards were there, and how many were "interfered with" (as you put it)? We also have the real-life Nazi Germany experience, where 1000's of previously-normal people did unspeakable things. And of course the Japanese behavior in China before that. You might call these "natural experiments." With human social behavior it's just not possible to have a rigorously controlled experiment. Nor can you ever end up wi…
Those 1000 people were heavily coaxed into it. They were subject to years long propaganda painting ennemy as evil danger. That includes literal school system teaching them this. Propaganda had many facets including the idea that manly men must be without empathy toward enemy, that empathy is weakness and cruelty is strength. A lot of those so-call normal people were literal Nazi party members who became such voluntar…
"They were subject to years long propaganda painting ennemy as evil danger."
This only applies to Altreich citizens, who lived in Germany as of 1933. But the Holocaust involved a lot of people who weren't Altreich citizens.
Austria was only annexed in March 1938, and yet supplied its share of war criminals to the Nazi effort.
The Trawniki men, who guarded a lot of the concentration camps in the East, were Ukrainians who only came under German rule in summer 1941 and didn't even speak German. I would say that the influence of German propaganda on them was negligible compared to an Altreich citizen.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis so what? Did they get a grade on their participation? I'd bet not. So why would they care what the hypothesis was? >> The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction. PZ says they said, "We noticed this morning that you weren't really, you kn…
> so what? It affects subject behaviour and contaminates the experiment.
If the outcome of the experiment is obvious and predictable, how can you make it unpredictable? And how it demonstrates failure to reproduce? This sounds like a generic argument against psychological experiments, because you can't have them in perfect conditions, you have to see through imperfection.
Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)
#90Is there anything similar on Milgram's experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
The popular shocking interpretation of the Milgram experiment is that most people will follow orders and obey authority, even in service of an ideology they don't believe in. For instance, if given an order by Nazis to kill Jews, most people would follow the order and do so. There's a Nazi in all of us, that's the shocking result that made the experiment famous.
It's BS though. The Milgram experiments actually showed that the explanations given with the orders mattered a lot. When the orders were given by people dressed like scientists and explained with "this is necessary for science", compliance rates were highest. When these factors were changed, compliance rates dropped. Compliance rates also dropped when the experiment was performed outside of college towns. What it actually demonstrated is that people do check orders against their pre-existing ideological commitments, and that people who trust scientists and believe in the necessity of science may be willing to commit atrocities in the service of science. Those same people, if given orders by Nazis, would refuse and walk away from the situation (presuming they could do so without being shot.).
In other words, the shocking result is wrong and the real result is mundane. People may commit atrocities for causes they believe in, when given those orders by people they trust.