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His response is informative, and should be read against what I believe to be a stronger case than the OP (and linked from it): https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/
by nickff 3y ago
His response is informative, and should be read against what I believe to be a stronger case than the OP (and linked from it): https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2019-letexier.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2019-letexier.pdf
Some of the more damning parts:
>"Of the students tested, 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis (that guards would be aggressive and that prisoners would revolt or comply), and 90% predicted that the guards would be “oppressive, hostile, aggressive, humiliating” (p. 158), thereby supporting the argument that demand characteristics were likely operating in the SPE and that the participants in the SPE would have probably guessed how Zimbardo and his coexperimenters wanted
them to behave."
>"Reason 4: The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction. "
>"When he began to get interested in prisons, only 3 months before the beginning of the experiment, Zimbardo already had strong views on the subject. As he would confide later, “my sympathies were heavily with prisoners. I was anti-prisons, anti-corrections, etc.” (Zimbardo, 2009, p. 34)."
- AlbertCory 3y ago>> 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis so what? Did they get a grade on their participation? I'd bet not. So why would they care what the hypothesis was? >> The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction. PZ says they said, "We noticed this morning that you weren't really, you know, lending a hand, and I was wondering if there's anything's wrong… We really want to get you active and involved because the guards have to know that every guard is going to be what we call a “tough guard”… what I mean by tough is [that] you have to be firm, and you have to be in the action… It’s really important… for the workings of the experiment [because] whether or not we can make this thing seem like a prison—which is the aim of the thing—depends largely on the guards’ behavior." Sorry, but I don't see how this invalidates anything. If some of the guards were just phoning it in and not taking it seriously, they did need a talking-to.
- mlyle 3y ago> so what? Did they get a grade on their participation? I'd bet not. So why would they care what the hypothesis was? - If you were a subject in an experiment, wouldn't you be curious about the experiment design and the hypothesis being tested? - If you had a good guess as to the tested hypothesis, could that influence your behavior?
- AlbertCory 3y ago[flagged]
- spicymapotofu 3y agoIs asking questions a worse form of dialogue to you? Is it intentionally ironic that you left only a snarky question yourself?
- Supermancho 3y agoThese questions are all posited from a modern, critical perspective, which is pointlessly fishing for theoreticals out of context. If the experiment was via college students, it is unlikely that anyone thought about the experiment design much, because students. This may be true of any adults in that time and area, maybe, as a (unnoted) selection bias. There was an implicit cultural deference to authority in the 70s that doesnt exist now (the thinking of the counter culture was also very different). Finally, there was a weak understanding of what terminology (like subject) implied or the inherent dangers, much less the ethical perils.
- yreg 3y ago> so what? It affects subject behaviour and contaminates the experiment.
- GoblinSlayer 3y agoIf the outcome of the experiment is obvious and predictable, how can you make it unpredictable? And how it demonstrates failure to reproduce? This sounds like a generic argument against psychological experiments, because you can't have them in perfect conditions, you have to see through imperfection.