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Though the experiment appears to have been rigged am I wrong when I say that Abu Ghraib, the torture sessions at Guantanamo and the CIA dark sites and Arizona's

Though the experiment appears to have been rigged am I wrong when I say that Abu Ghraib, the torture sessions at Guantanamo and the CIA dark sites and Arizona's isolation units pretty much concur with the SPE results? From wikipedia: On August 20, 1971, Zimbardo announced the end of the experiment to the participants. "... According to Zimbardo's interpretation of the SPE, it demonstrated that the simulated-prison situation , rather than individual personality traits, caused the participants' behavior. Using this situational attribution, the results are compatible with those of the Milgram experiment, where random participants complied with orders to administer seemingly dangerous and potentially lethal electric shocks to a shill.[21]..." "... The experiment has also been used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority...."

mistercow 8y ago
Do we have good reason to believe that those cases weren't also caused by leadership?
- SCAQTony 8y ago
  Yes, at Abu Ghraib leadership failures and order abuses: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/washington/12detainee.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=91D80460BA7D3BD38A86B48F779A43D1&gwt=pay https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/washington/12detainee.htm... "...The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the report says, “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”..." As for GITMO and CIA dark sites — New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-p... "...WASHINGTON — The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists. ..." Amnesty International has a boatload of information regarding Sherif Joe Arpaio and the use on isolation unit and in his words concentration camps: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoenix-concentration-camp-tent-city-jail-joe-arpaio-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoen... The chants were directed at the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who a few months before had called this outdoor jail close to downtown Phoenix – his own tough-on-crime creation – a “concentration camp” in a speech to political supporters at his local Italian-American club. When asked about the comment by the Guardian in July, Arpaio brushed it off as a joke. “But even if it was a concentration camp, what difference does it make? I still survived. I still kept getting re-elected,” he said...."
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
olavk 8y ago
The experiment attempted to show what mechanisms cause abuse like Abu Ghraib to happen. The theory was that the power disparity in a prison in itself lead to abuse and not individual personality traits of the abusers. This apparently have not been proven. Other explanations are possible. For example that it was actually deliberate policy to abuse prisoners and that the guards sympathized with this policy. As for the Nazi concentration camps it is important to realize that not everyone were treated equally bad. For example prisoners of war from USSR where treated much worse then prisoners from the western allies. This cannot be explained the Zimbardos theory, but can be explained by deliberate policy and Nazi ideology.

mistercow 8y ago

Do we have good reason to believe that those cases weren't also caused by leadership?

SCAQTony 8y ago
Yes, at Abu Ghraib leadership failures and order abuses: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/washington/12detainee.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=91D80460BA7D3BD38A86B48F779A43D1&gwt=pay https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/washington/12detainee.htm... "...The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the report says, “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”..." As for GITMO and CIA dark sites — New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-p... "...WASHINGTON — The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists. ..." Amnesty International has a boatload of information regarding Sherif Joe Arpaio and the use on isolation unit and in his words concentration camps: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoenix-concentration-camp-tent-city-jail-joe-arpaio-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoen... The chants were directed at the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who a few months before had called this outdoor jail close to downtown Phoenix – his own tough-on-crime creation – a “concentration camp” in a speech to political supporters at his local Italian-American club. When asked about the comment by the Guardian in July, Arpaio brushed it off as a joke. “But even if it was a concentration camp, what difference does it make? I still survived. I still kept getting re-elected,” he said...."

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

olavk 8y ago

The experiment attempted to show what mechanisms cause abuse like Abu Ghraib to happen. The theory was that the power disparity in a prison in itself lead to abuse and not individual personality traits of the abusers. This apparently have not been proven. Other explanations are possible. For example that it was actually deliberate policy to abuse prisoners and that the guards sympathized with this policy. As for the Nazi concentration camps it is important to realize that not everyone were treated equally bad. For example prisoners of war from USSR where treated much worse then prisoners from the western allies. This cannot be explained the Zimbardos theory, but can be explained by deliberate policy and Nazi ideology.