Stanford Prison Experiment

reply to post by UmbraSumus


Actually 180+ could be considered Genius level.

140 to 160 fits in more with Doctors, Lawyers and so on...

160 is up there but people like for example Albert Einstein would fall into the category of 180 or above. As I stated the subjects in this experiment were all people who had the potential to gain a Doctorate and that is documented.

Further reading

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by UmbraSumus

 

Actually 180+ could be considered Genius level.

140 to 160 fits in more with Doctors, Lawyers and so on...

160 is up there but people like for example Albert Einstein would fall into the category of 180 or above. As I stated the subjects in this experiment were all people who had the potential to gain a Doctorate and that is documented.

Further reading

Any thoughts?

From your own source that you linked :

A score over 160 is considered by many to be a genius IQ score

link




So we don`t actually know the I.Q. of the participants - correct ?

reply to post by UmbraSumus


What we know is the number of people on the planet that actually have a Bachelors degree

Source

As the PDF file offered "all the members were college students", with exception of the professors
who oversaw it....This essentially presents and IQ of 140 to 160, is in general the range a person
can achieve a college degree. When it comes to a Masters or PHD 160 IQ is generally accepted.

A Breakdown of IQ Scores

Now that you understand these key terms, we can talk a bit more about how we interpret IQ scores. The average score on an IQ test is 100. Sixty-eight percent of IQ scores fall within one standard deviation of the mean. So that means that the majority of people have an IQ score between 85 and 115.
•1 to 24 - Profound mental disability
•25 to 39 - Severe mental disability
•40 to 54 - Moderate mental disability
•55 to 69 - Mild mental disability
•70 to 84 - Borderline mental disability
•85 to 114 - Average intelligence
•115 to 129 - Above average; bright
•130 to 144 - Moderately gifted
•145 to 159 - Highly gifted
•160 to 179 - Exceptionally gifted
•180 and up - Profoundly gifted

As expressed in the link provided prior to your last response


Any thoughts?

Anyone interested in the psychology behind the Stanford Prison Experiment should read The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. It's a retrospective account of the experiment written by the psychologist who conducted it.

The message behind the book, and the experiment, is that virtually everyone is capable of seeminly "evil" acts, but situational factors are more accountable in explaining why (sometimes over a lifespan) than dispositional factors. This isn't as depressing as people may think, as it works the other way, i.e. everyone can also be a hero if placed in the right situation, and it teaches people not to judge a person's behaviour based on their personality (dispositional factors), but think about the situations that have lead to up to that person committing crimes or pathologies, (at the same time, this does not make it an excuse for committing immoral acts).

Two main factors that seem to influence people into acting immoral are 'dehumanisation' and deindividuation. Dehumanisation occurs when people become convinced that another person is below them, or lower than human. This is often a tool of propaganda employed by dictatorships and was a tactic employed by the Nazi's, who regularly associated the Jews as rats.

De-individuation occurs to people when they are part of large crowds. In a large crowd, people appear to lose their sense of awareness and are protected by higher levels of anonymity. Deindividuation was seen as a major influence into the shocking behaviour of the guards in the prison experiment, as the guards immersed themselves into their group, which reinforced their behaviours into becoming progressively worse. This also seemed to effect Zimbardo himself, as it was not him who stopped the experiment, but his girlfriend Christine Maslach.

reply to post by HenryNorris

Actually, it's not Capitalism that's shown to be at fault, it's our inability to step outside the circumstances we find ourselves in, as overlord or slave. These studies, for me, show we lack individual will. It seems at odds with our every day experience which implies free will.

These studies show that when given power we abuse it and when power is taken away we become submissive. We do all this against the better halve of ourselves. It's like we're cowards. Unable to control power humanely when we wield it, and unable to reject the evil orders of a superior. It seems things only work out if our superior is good and the superiors themselves lack abusive powers. As soon as a superior becomes bad and/or powerful, we'll soon find ourselves helpless to stop it.

But 1/3 of the subjects in the milgram experiment rejected the orders. Keep that in mind. And 2 of the "prisoners" in the Stanford experiment walked out. And at least the experimenters had the wherewithal to terminate the experiment before it completely lost control. So there's hope for us. But how much does it all really matter? These're not empirical yet. I have a wait and see attitude.

This may sound crazy - and it probably is - but I think that the reference in hte bible to 1/3 of hte angels being thrown from heaven is in fact an indication that they're good, not bad! Another thing that leads me to believe this is that God seems like a wrathful tyrant. God is like a man who declares rape to be unlawful and yet sits and watches a man rape his daughter and only after the man is done does God stand up and declare the act evil and punish him. Furthermore, almost no where in the bible do we hear about the devil killing someone. And yet there're numerous accounts of God committing genocide and exacting terrible torture on "evil" people. So since God seems every way evil I have to think that the demons and the devil are in fact rebels with a good cause. Of course, I don't actually believe in God. I don't have a religion. But if the bible were true, I'd lean in this direction.

reply to post by twfau


There is a potentially relevant rumor that the Experiment was stoped when a female "prisoner," offered sex to a male "guard, if he helped her escape.

The problem is that all these subjects/human beings, in no way signed any document. That suggested, if they were abused they could not receive the money they were promised. Despite that fact they was a whole range of behavior that offered all concerned treated this experiment as it was something real; not an experiment where they could opt out, with a "safe word."

Any thoughts?

I wouldn't be surprised if that happened but the guards were already stripping the prisoners naked on a regular basis, which these days would be considered a form of sexual abuse in itself.

The participants signed a consent form, and they had a right to withdraw at any time. Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the experiment is that so few people withdrew, even the prisoners became that engrossed in their surrounding that they basically became the character they were portraying.

Again, this also happened to Zimbardo, who began to play the role of impassive director, not having the strength of mind to stop the experiment even though it was clear to see it had gone too far.

Consent Form

One more thing...

I think there's a similar experiment having to do with dogs or something.

Anybody remember it?

Are you talking about the 'learned helplessness experiments', where they electrocuted dogs without allowing them an escape to ascertain how animals react in situations no hope?

Psychology doesn't have the proudest of pasts...

Originally posted by twfau
Are you talking about the 'learned helplessness experiments', where they electrocuted dogs without allowing them an escape to ascertain how animals react in situations no hope?

Psychology doesn't have the proudest of pasts...

That's it!!!!!

I was just reading and thought it had to do with Pavlov and the salivating dog(s).

But your reply is 100% what I remember. What I recall is that the dogs were given a way to escape but chose not to because they had somehow been conditioned that way.

Thanks!

reply to post by jonnywhite


Your speaking of Pavlov's Experiment and again this type of treatment fails in respect to the human condition, in respect to human consciousness.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai

Failure is painful. And/or rejection.

You learn to fear it.

So you stay where you're comfortable.

As a reinforcement, you emotionally become bound to the familiar.

I imagine other things reinforce it too.

The experiment seems to show that it's a mental prison. Becomes self-imposed.

It was kind of a grotesque version of Pavlov, the dogs were repeatedly shocked until they learned there was no escape, to the point that by the time opportunities to escape were given, the dogs had basically given up.

I don't even think that was the worst experiment in Psychology:

Watson (1911) induced a phobia of rabbits in a young baby by creating a loud bang everytime the baby saw a rabbit.
Jouvet (1964) deprived cats of REM sleep by placing them on plant pots (once in REM sleep the body would relax and fall off the plant pot, into water), killing all the cats.
Harlowe (1958) induced a whole range of psychological trauma in monkeys by depriving them on their parents and replacing them with robots (some furry robots, some not). Some of these monkeys also died.
Landis (1924) forced students to behead rats....

I could go on

reply to post by jonnywhite


In this case the familiar, resulted in the abuse/torture and actual killing of disabled people. The reason being that a paradigm, was more important than the life of a 9 year old Schizophrenic who did not respond to standard treatment (as an example).

Geraldo Rivera's article made clear that things like this actually happened.

In the case of the last private facility that engaged in such practices, the facility primary function was to deal with Children that were diagnosed as Psychotic. There was an incident where it became apparent that a child was subjected to electro-shock therapy twice a day for 10 days just prior to a home visit.

Any thoughts?

People not standing up to abuses of any areas such as Guantanamo Bay (or of the like) is on a larger scale akin to the Stanford PE in my opinon.

Torture tolerating is no worse than being the toturer.

Experiments like this (as well as the Brown Eyed/Blue Eyed Ex) are now academically banned for being unethical but who needs em anymore when we do them publicly--on the evening news.

Originally posted by dianashay
People not standing up to abuses of any areas such as Guantanamo Bay (or of the like) is on a larger scale akin to the Stanford PE in my opinon.

Torture tolerating is no worse than being the toturer.

Experiments like this (as well as the Brown Eyed/Blue Eyed Ex) are now academically banned for being unethical but who needs em anymore when we do them publicly--on the evening news.

Let us not forget the Spanish Inquisition or the result of ending up in a Russian Gulag, or a Chinese Prison and accused of treason or being a spy. Guantanamo Bay is (I admit) a failure in the American system to find a way, beyond what is practiced through-out the world as a method to address worst case situations.

Hypothetically speaking consider yourself a foreign citizen, visiting the US on vacation. You meet an American couple who tell you they have something incredible to show you. They tell you that all things considered this situation could make you a millionaire over night if your willing to get involved.

Because of this you GOP to there home and end up watching a video, that presents graphically that when Hillary Clinton was the 1st lady? She engaged in graphic and inappropriate sexual activity with two, well endowed men.

Now consider an alternative....You are vacationing in England and some British friends are showing you a similar video. But in this case the subject of attention is the current Queen of England, when she was in her 20's.

Any thoughts?

Seeing Hillary or the Queen naked....now that IS torture. *shivers


second line.

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by twfau

 

There is a potentially relevant rumor that the Experiment was stoped when a female "prisoner," offered sex to a male "guard, if he helped her escape.

The problem is that all these subjects/human beings, in no way signed any document. That suggested, if they were abused they could not receive the money they were promised. Despite that fact they was a whole range of behavior that offered all concerned treated this experiment as it was something real; not an experiment where they could opt out, with a "safe word."

Any thoughts?

Do I have any thoughts ? Yes .

You certainly don`t let the facts get in the way of a good story.


"Female prisoners" ?

The participants i.e. the guards and prisoners, were male.


"..all these subjects/human beings, in no way signed any document"

All the students signed a Consent Form before participating in the study.
link

I still haven`t seen any proof from an earlier assertion of yours that the participants had 160+ I.Q. scores


This controversial experiment has enough intrigue surrounding it without the need for your embellishments.

I don't agree that the evidence necessarily points to the failure of the various materialist models of human consciousness. It could simply suggest that there are scenarios and situations wherein predisposition is overridden by the parameters thereof. That's a scary conclusion to me, actually. That people will cast aside their predispositions and comply with a situation rather than their conscience.

Peace.

reply to post by AceWombat04


The main conclusions aren't as depressing as you might think though. Basically, without prior knowledge and understanding, people are more inclined to commit horrible acts if they are in situations they've never prepared themselves for. Just by reading about this experiment, people will imagine how they would act, which by itself may lead to them acting benevolently when put in a similar position now. Milgram's shock studies wouldn't get the same high results nowadays, mostly because so many people are aware of them.

Daniel Kahnemann described two levels of the brain. Level 1 is the instinctive, emotional brain, in which behaviours and attitudes are made on the spur of the moment, and often not based on rationality. Level 2 is the rational brain which comes out after a person takes the time to think about the consequences of each decision and behaviour and has more knowledge of the actual probability of events. Kahnemann describes many positive outcomes to using the level 2 brain more, particularly to do with prejudice and discrimination.