Neuroscience
The idea that certain situations can turn good people evil has spread like wildfire ever since Philip Zimbardo's (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The study ended prematurely when the "ordinary" participants acting as "guards" turned sadistic. Zimbardo has said this showed "the evil that good people can be readily induced into doing to other good people", and recently he has explained the Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in similar terms.
But what if the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment weren't "good people"? What if the idea of participating in a prison experiment, or working at an interrogation facility, appeals to a certain type of character?
Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland posted two adverts, just like the ones used in Zimbardo's study, in several campus newspapers. One advert invited male participants for “a psychological study of prison life”; the other invited participants for “a psychological study”.
Just as in Zimbardo's study, all participants with mental health problems or a criminal or anti-social background were omitted. Crucially, the remaining 30 applicants to the "study of prison life" scored significantly higher on measures of aggression, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, social dominance, and lower on measures of altruism and empathy, than did the 61 volunteers for the "psychological study".
Contrary to Zimbardo's situationist perspective, the finding is compatible with a more interactionist view of human behaviour – one that acknowledges that people's personalities affect the situations they find themselves in. “We spend our lives selecting to be in some situations while avoiding others”, the researchers said. Moreover, like-minded individuals are likely to seek out similar situations. So, whether in Zimbardo's study, or in Abu Ghraib, similar characters may have “mutually weakened each other’s constraints against abuse and reinforced in each other their willingness to engage in it”.
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Carnahan, T. & McFarland S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007, 33, 603-614.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Can good people really turn bad? Re-visiting the Stanford Prison Experiment
The idea that certain situations can turn good people evil has spread like wildfire ever since Philip Zimbardo's (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The study ended prematurely when the "ordinary" participants acting as "guards" turned sadistic. Zimbardo has said this showed "the evil that good people can be readily induced into doing to other good people", and recently he has explained the Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in similar terms.But what if the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment weren't "good people"? What if the idea of participating in a prison experiment, or working at an interrogation facility, appeals to a certain type of character?
Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland posted two adverts, just like the ones used in Zimbardo's study, in several campus newspapers. One advert invited male participants for “a psychological study of prison life”; the other invited participants for “a psychological study”.
Just as in Zimbardo's study, all participants with mental health problems or a criminal or anti-social background were omitted. Crucially, the remaining 30 applicants to the "study of prison life" scored significantly higher on measures of aggression, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, social dominance, and lower on measures of altruism and empathy, than did the 61 volunteers for the "psychological study".
Contrary to Zimbardo's situationist perspective, the finding is compatible with a more interactionist view of human behaviour – one that acknowledges that people's personalities affect the situations they find themselves in. “We spend our lives selecting to be in some situations while avoiding others”, the researchers said. Moreover, like-minded individuals are likely to seek out similar situations. So, whether in Zimbardo's study, or in Abu Ghraib, similar characters may have “mutually weakened each other’s constraints against abuse and reinforced in each other their willingness to engage in it”.
__________________________________
Carnahan, T. & McFarland S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007, 33, 603-614.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Neuroethics For Barbie
My Three Shrinks podcast #13: Lost It In Space features psychiatrists ClinkShrink, Dinah and Roy discussing a few questions on neuroethics I'd sent along to ClinkShrink, a forensic psych currently working in a prison. What's the line between...
- What The Textbooks Don't Tell You - One Of Psychology's Most Famous Experiments Was Seriously Flawed
Zimbardo speaking in '09Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has acquired a mythical status and provided the inspiration for at least two feature-length films. You'll recall that several university students allocated to the...
- Elsewhere
Psychology-related radio clips, podcasts, magazine features and more, for when you've had enough of journal articles. "My brain made me do it". Debate at the Institute of Ideas on the use of neuroscience in politics and the courtroom. (Video Webcast)....
- What's The Most Important Psychology Experiment That's Never Been Done...?
To mark 100 email issues of the Research Digest - the British Psychological Society's free roundup of the world's best new psychology research - and to inspire the next generation of researchers, I asked leading psychologists and bloggers to write...
- Challenging The Conclusions Drawn From Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
Alex Haslam: "The invitation to design the 'most important experiment that’s never been done' is an interesting one, but one that entails a great many dangers. One of these is that by inviting researchers to focus on experiments per se, it encourages...