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Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment [pdf]

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Re: Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment [pdf]

#11
post #10
post #3

Can someone explain to me what researchers considers "scientific validity" in psychology? I feel like human behavior will change as culture evolves. For example how people react to a plane hijacking drastically shifted after 9/11. In a similar way the Stanford Prison Experiment probably permanently changed a part of human culture so that it will no longer be replicable (regardless of whether the original setup and re…

I think this is exacerbated by a dual blind-spot in both our thinking and languages regarding the difference between "how something was the last time we checked" and "how something intrinsically/durably/permanently is and will be no matter how many times we check". It probably isn't something we've needed in large quantities for long. Your question focuses on psychology (and I agree it's important here), but this pro…

To unpack a smidge, I think the first N steps all involve developing the perception and language to spot, tag, and catalog instances of this problem.

There's a fundamental shortfall in the quality of our thinking relative to the task (and the ultimate answer may just be that we're too time-bound to think this way). It's in the study designs, papers, abstracts, and unavoidable in the popular press.

Re: Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment [pdf]

#12
post #3

Can someone explain to me what researchers considers "scientific validity" in psychology? I feel like human behavior will change as culture evolves. For example how people react to a plane hijacking drastically shifted after 9/11. In a similar way the Stanford Prison Experiment probably permanently changed a part of human culture so that it will no longer be replicable (regardless of whether the original setup and re…

The reality is that all humanities, not just psychology, do not claim to be value-free. In other words, psychologists (the serious ones) do NOT claim:

1) that patients biases aren't reflected in their research

2) that their own biases aren't reflected in their research

And of course ... there's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

Re: Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment [pdf]

#13
post #3

Can someone explain to me what researchers considers "scientific validity" in psychology? I feel like human behavior will change as culture evolves. For example how people react to a plane hijacking drastically shifted after 9/11. In a similar way the Stanford Prison Experiment probably permanently changed a part of human culture so that it will no longer be replicable (regardless of whether the original setup and re…

The reality is that all humanities, not just psychology, do not claim to be value-free. In other words, psychologists (the serious ones) do NOT claim: 1) that patients biases aren't reflected in their research 2) that their own biases aren't reflected in their research And of course ... there's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

(note that in the Rosenhan experiment, ALL examined psychiatrists had a false positive rate of 100%. Anything significantly over 50%, of course, can only be caused by systematic fraud. That's 12 separate institutions, 20 psychiatrists, in 5 US states. ALL frauds (willing to diagnose patient with an illness despite having no confidence in them actually being ill)

Re: Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment [pdf]

#14
post #3

Can someone explain to me what researchers considers "scientific validity" in psychology? I feel like human behavior will change as culture evolves. For example how people react to a plane hijacking drastically shifted after 9/11. In a similar way the Stanford Prison Experiment probably permanently changed a part of human culture so that it will no longer be replicable (regardless of whether the original setup and re…

The very traditional view of science as the formulation and testing of universal laws applies fairly well to the study of electro-magnetism, for example. The properties of electro-magnetism, for example, it is reasonably safe to assume that the properties of electro-magnetism are the same today, as they were yesterday, and the properties are the same whether in New York, or in Miami. But this view of science is compl…

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