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The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

newyorker.com

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Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#2
It's atrociously bad science. It's not worthwhile to talk about what it means. I appreciated the BBC anecdote as well as the research about the advertisement's phrasing, but trying to interpret it at all is irresponsible pop science wiring.

Briefly: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#3
This is an interesting angle to further understand the Stanford Prison Experiment.

IwasA Guard in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. AMA!

Quote-

"I felt that Zimbardo had a conclusion and he constructed "an experiment" to demonstrate it. That was my belief at the time and now."

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2y5sbt/iwasa_guard_in_...

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#6

This is an interesting angle to further understand the Stanford Prison Experiment. IwasA Guard in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. AMA! Quote- "I felt that Zimbardo had a conclusion and he constructed "an experiment" to demonstrate it. That was my belief at the time and now." http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2y5sbt/iwasa_guard_in_...

The AMA has a lot of quotes that reinforce Milgram's Obedience To Authority over Zimbardo's Innate Human Evil.

The AMA guy says he engaged in all the prisoner mistreatment out of a sense of duty and respect for the experimental setup.

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#7

It's atrociously bad science. It's not worthwhile to talk about what it means. I appreciated the BBC anecdote as well as the research about the advertisement's phrasing, but trying to interpret it at all is irresponsible pop science wiring. Briefly: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025

It is not worthwhile to talk about what it means while framing it as an experiment, but it is still worthwhile to talk about it as a historical incident. We still talk about what other human rights abuses imply about the human condition, no?

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#8
>Those who thought that they would be participating in a prison study had significantly higher levels of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and they scored lower on measures of empathy and altruism.

So the experiment suffered from the same sort of selection bias that goes into hiring for prison guards or other authoritative punitive figures? Seems pretty realistic to me. Prison guards are not selected from the population at random.

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#9

It's atrociously bad science. It's not worthwhile to talk about what it means. I appreciated the BBC anecdote as well as the research about the advertisement's phrasing, but trying to interpret it at all is irresponsible pop science wiring. Briefly: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025

On the contrary, I think Britain especially is sliding into an authoritative, totalitarian nightmare. The parallels between the government workers turning the wheels of oppression against their own citizens and the way the "Guards" acted cannot be ignored.

Re: The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

#10

It's atrociously bad science. It's not worthwhile to talk about what it means. I appreciated the BBC anecdote as well as the research about the advertisement's phrasing, but trying to interpret it at all is irresponsible pop science wiring. Briefly: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025

On the contrary, I think Britain especially is sliding into an authoritative, totalitarian nightmare. The parallels between the government workers turning the wheels of oppression against their own citizens and the way the "Guards" acted cannot be ignored.

None of that makes the study good science.
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