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Please don't create arguments by taking clearly figurative language literally. There's plenty to fight about without that.

• everdev 8y ago
  From OC: > I.e., not caused by the experimenters asking the participants to behave a certain way I think the point is, OC is presenting the experiment as something that comes about as a result of the setting (including uniform). But, I think from the researcher's and participants perspective, the instructions played a significant role. From article: > For Korpi, the most frightening thing about the experiment was being told that, regardless of his desire to quit, he truly did not have the power to leave. > Another prisoner, Richard Yacco, recalled being stunned on the experiment’s second day after asking a staff-member how to quit and learning that he couldn’t. A third prisoner, Clay Ramsay, was so dismayed on discovering that he was trapped that he started a hunger strike. > a taped conversation between Zimbardo and his staff on day three of the simulation: “An interesting thing was that the guys who came in yesterday, the two guys who came in and said they wanted to leave, and I said no,” So, yeah, the instructions were a huge part of the experiment. People wanted to leave and couldn't. The action/reaction between the participants ("I want to leave"/"No.", complain/6 hours in solitary) probably made the scenario much more real than the hallway posing as a jail or the fake uniforms. So, figuratively or literally I don't think it was about what happens when you put on a uniform. I think it's more about what happens when someone tells you to follow a set of rules that create an empowered/disempowered dynamic.