4 ms·
Anybody who has ever served in a military will tell you just how absurd the Stanford experiment is. People in the military wear uniforms with rank and responsi
by austincheney 8y ago
Anybody who has ever served in a military will tell you just how absurd the Stanford experiment is. People in the military wear uniforms with rank and responsibility that is visibly apparent. Yet, these behaviors don't exist.
I can vaguely remember my time in Army basic training which was somewhat like a prison environment with captives. Even in extreme cases the behaviors of the Stanford experiment are absent. Drill sergeants who are artificially made to be mean and are visibly separated by rank and uniform aren't like the guards in the experiment. Some of the privates who display criminal-like behaviors don't behave like the prisoners in the experiment.
Perhaps the experiment cannot be reproduced because it simply doesn't represent human behavior. Perhaps people are more rational than that even when forced to behave in ways suggestive of the experiment.
- will4274 8y agoI don't find that inconsistent. The Standford experiment showed that people act out the stereotypes of the roles they are assigned. My stereotype of a drill sergeant is yelling a lot, but fundamentally devoted to 'making unruly young boys into men' through bullying, disrespect - it seems to me that the conclusions predict that a quiet person who is assigned the role of a drill sergeant would suddenly start yelling a lot or a otherwise respectful person would become disrespectful. The stereotype of a prison guard is much different. Rather than 'unruly boys' it's 'hardened criminals' - the difference in reaction to being assigned a role can be explained by the differing stereotypes of the roles, as an alternative to the experimental conclusion being wrong.
- austincheney 8y agoI don’t find that people working in a professional capacity default to stereotypes. Do you conform to a sreotype?
- mcguire 8y agoMostly, yeah. That's why there are stereotypes.
- checkyoursudo 8y agoMy experience is that stereotypes exist because most humans are lazy and prefer to see patterns where there aren't any (or are weakly there) than critically examining the world around them, including assuming stereotypes are true instead of getting to know actual people. I know few people who truly fit any stereotypes.
- pluma 8y agoSo how does Abu Ghraib fit into this?
- mercer 8y ago> The administration of George W. Bush asserted that these were isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy.[8][9] This was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. These organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.[9] Several scholars stated that the abuses constituted state-sanctioned crimes.[8][9] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...) If it's true that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was state-sanctioned (and AFAIK this pretty much considered fact), then I'd say a comparison to what the SFE was all about doesn't make too much sense. Of course people will torture their prisoners if they're encouraged/told to do so.
- kpil 8y agoI think Zimbardo argued as an defence witness in Lyndie England's trial that the lack of proper guidelines and laissez faire leadership, vulnerability of the camp and the guards in a hostile city, combined with the harsh interrogation methods used by the non-military spooks, created a local "group dynamics" accepting violence and abuse. The point was to show that England was not a freak, and it could happen to anyone. I'm inclined to agree that writing nice policies on a paper won't be enough when running a prison camp in a war zone where some higher ups are waterboarding the prisoners...
- pluma 8y agoAlso, it's a well-understood principle that soldiers are more comfortable actually killing the enemy if you actively dehumanize the enemy. Humans are generally very unwilling to actually kill other humans even in war so teaching them not to consider their enemies humans is an easy way to make them more efficient. Not surprising what happens when they then take the same mindset to POWs while being given free reign to "interrogate". The question isn't whether England was a freak. The question is how we could allow this to happen after Lidice (Germany), Nanking (Japan) and My Lai (US). That no-one was tried for Abu Ghraib as a war crime is unsurprising but abhorrent.