I was a Psychology student a few years ago and they were still teaching this as true. I saw some place that a lot of psychological experiments are less than accurate, and very bias. Very disappointing for me. I could tell that a lot of what I learned didn't add up with what I saw but that would be me getting caught up in my own bias.
Yea.. I know exactly how you feel. It is really disappointing. I think for a lot of these psychology courses it’s just easier (quicker?) for them to teach it than teach it AND THEN critique it. I think this is a broader problem with science though; where there isn’t an emphasis on critique as there should be.
I’m not saying psychology is bunk. But there was a reason why it wasn’t taken seriously as a science. Obviously it is. But I’m just saying there’s quacks and a lot of them
I'd come across criticism of the Zimbardo experiment a few years ago so I was really excited about this video. I'd love to hear what you think about the Millgram experiment.
Well I’m hoping the video didn’t disappoint? And yea a video on the Millgram experiment would actually be super cool - might actually go ahead with it!
At my primary school during camp week, the school was divided into blue and yellow groups. This was in the late 70ties. Friends were split up, and put in different groups. Each group had its own flag, and was meant as a form of life stratego. Quite a few friendships never recovered, and being yellow or blue was a thing, years later, when only few actually were there. I am 52 now and will never forget how easy it is to make people do bad things.
The fact that these experiments exist are a threat and a warning against authoritarianism itself. Its the very reason they are taught so widely. To "debunk" them is a grave mistake. Especially at the current moment. Imagine this, authoritarianism starts to rise up around you, every excuse in the book is used to say it's "for your own good"... You try to show this study and the Milgram experiment to people to help them realize and caution against these inherent human tendencies and their propensity for being manipulated to ill ends... They respond back to you without a moment's consideration, "Oh, those have been debunked..." Authoritarianism needs the sheep to herd the sheep, these experiments need debunking for that to happen.... Or maybe he's right and it's just all baaaaaaad science.... Sorry, couldn't help myself....
It is a good critical analysis considering how much this experiment is ingrained in pop culture. But just wanted to add few points. This experiment was never able to replicated, it was unethical and also their method did not have good validity or reliability. Just wanted that, good video I will check you other videos too.
You’re definitely right about the ethical issues involved that would probably prevent the experiment from being replicated today! And THANK YOU! Hope you enjoy the other videos you get to see :)
Oh, so prisons are nice places and people don't dehumanize each other and treat each other like garbage when an opportune authoritarian social dynamic is presented to them. Wow, neat, glad that's out of the way....
@billmarshall268 it would be interesting to hear the prisoners side of that assertion BUT I can agree that good leadership and controls can contain bad behaviour. History is littered with too many examples of our depraved capabilities and it certainly seems like Zimbardo's theory is reflected in the real-life example of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. I didn't see Santa Claus but it did appear that Zimbardo was correct concerning the potential for "good people" doing "bad things" and the role of authority can play - that is how genocide comes to be on a larger scale.
@markrussell3428 That's the thing there was no real prisoners. It was all pretend. It was volunteer on both sides and they could have left any time they wanted. He wanted specific results and so he made that happen. On the other note yes abuse does happen with people with positions of authority. Parents abuse their kids and they shouldn't. Police have used accessive force and they Should not. What gave his faulty experiment away is that the abuse started immediately. That's not the way those things usually happen. As for the iraqi prisoner abuse. That was very circumstantial. I had a friend who was working there. Who did not witness nor take part in any of it. He explained to me that was more as a formal revenge. Not that that makes it right. Those prisoners were all there because they killed americans.
@@billmarshall268 Thanks for the reply. This experiment is tainted by Zimbardo’s bias and its a weak simulation. Does it replicate a prison - no. There are a couple things going on here that are of value. For me the simulation does more to replicate aspects of Milgram’s electro-shock experiment. In this case the authority (Zimbardo) provides the influence on a subject (prison guard) to validate the acts of punishment the subject delivers. Unlike Milgram, the object of abuse is real. There were no “objects of abuse” in Milgram’s experiment. Were prisoners in this simulation “going along with it”? Really, it doesn’t matter. The issue for me was the guards’ behavior. These are acts that on their own the subject is doing under the cover of the authority and arguably it even escalates. The individual personality type of the subject will respond differently, and a subject (a guard) may even get to a point of objecting to taking part in the simulation or doing anything. Hence, not every subject adopts sadistic behaviors. As for prisons themselves, most progressive prisons are structured more around rehabilitation versus punishment. At some point individuals may be re-integrated into society. This, in part, reduces the risk of dehumanization and prisons are far less likely to have problems given the controls that are in place to prevent it. When the act of detention is not associated with rehabilitation and when the controls are not in place (or if leadership is indifferent to human conditions) you will see things spiral. Abu-Graib is not isolated, and it is something to learn from. In the end, Zimbardo’s thesis is good people can do bad things and this pretty accurate. Some personality types might be more prone to be abusers and even highly agreeable and compassionate.
Are you going to deconstruct the Millgram experiment which has a similar design and relates authoritative power and the human potential for dehumanization?
@@NeuroEverything Is this all in an effort to demonstrate that people would never do such things? Do you think the experiments are build around a false premise? Perhaps you can deconstruct the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal or even the holocaust. Milgram and Zimbardo demonstrate just what people are capable of doing by either an overt act or by simply being complicit. Its easy to apply critical theory and tell us what's wrong with these experiments and discredit the works of others - how about we try to understand human psychology and figure out why such things happen.
@@markrussell3428 100%, this guy wants to "debunk" these experiments in the public eye so they can happen again. The fact that these experiments exist are a threat and a warning against authoritarianism itself. Its the very reason they are taught so widely. To "debunk" them is a grave mistake. Especially at the current moment. Imagine this, authoritarianism starts to rise up around you, every excuse in the book is used to say it's "for your own good"... You try to show this study and the Milgram experiment to people to help them realize and caution against these inherent human tendencies and their propensity for being manipulated to ill ends... They respond back to you without a moment's consideration, "Oh, those have been debunked..." Authoritarianism needs the sheep to herd the sheep, these experiments need debunking for that to happen.... Or maybe he's right and it's just all baaaaaaad science.... Sorry, couldn't help myself.... Also, this channel and these videos sure are well produced for a guy who should be spending so much time "doctoring"... Don't you think??...
@@markrussell3428the abu gharib incident was merely a set up supported by muslim extremists and the holocaust was already going to happen without hitler. People often disobey laws and morals that they should because they are selfish, not to mention they often don’t need government to do the heavy lfiting for them, look at the kwanting army.
So I know everyone is referencing the paper called “Debunking the zimbardo experiment” but if you actually did your own research on that paper and their sources you can see a lot of their points are flawed. So first the BBC prison study, this study was not even close to replicating the SPE basically any emotional confrontation was diluted by the research team and like a tv show the prisoners had a confessional every day to the camera to share their feelings. There were other things that were drastically different. The other points of the paper are flawed as well but I’m pretty sure Zimbardo himself already responded and his experiment which showed the fundamental attribution error has been seen in real life many times in other ways not in a prison situation. I can explain what this theory is as well but I’m on my phone but basically people underestimate environment.
I definitely agree that the environment you’re in probably has a large effect on one’s actions and while the BBC Prison Study had its flaws, we should acknowledge that the Stanford Prison Experiment (was at the least) equally flawed..
@@NeuroEverything I don't think the experiment had as many flaws as many think though that is my point. Some of the main criticisms are assumptions and the story of one of the prisoners faking his illness to leave early is very inconsistent he says one day he's faking it and another day that he wasn't so it just doesn't make sense. And the other criticisms are just misleading the paper says the guards were told by Zimbardo to "Toughen Up" which misdirected the experiment. This is EXTREMELY misleading here's what he actually 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." Asking a guard firmly to act as a guard in a prison experiment is extremely milder than in real life where the superior officer exerts much more pressure Zimbardo simply asked them to take part in the experiment to make it more realistic which is very understandable. But like I said you should look at Zimbardo's response and do your own research on the paper first. The experiment still showed the fundamental attribution error without a doubt it's still even seen in other situations. Now I will say there are errors in his experiment like selection bias, small sample size, and other things but I really strongly disagree with anyone who believes this experiment should be trashed because of this.
"...that's sad, if you ask me..." I was expecting a serious, scientific analysis but what I got was a Valley Girl reaction. You ought to read "The Lucifer Effect", Zimbardo does a very good job of pointing out the flaws in his own study, and provides detailed post experiment feedback from the participants. Although not exactly prison-reform related, you might want to look into Jane Elliot's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment - I believe that it does a very good job in demonstrating how cruel people can become when given position and power. One more to look at, The Third Wave experiment by Ron Jones. Again, not centered on prison dynamics (Nazi Germany), but again a great glimpse into how power and position can be abused in the extreme. And if you need some real life evidence, look no further than the shit that went on in Abu Graib. Zimbardo damn near predicted that horror with the events that played out in the SPE.
Except the people at Abu Graib weren't simply dropped into their roles, they went through training in a program that already biases results - then were specifically selected for their ability to fit into the roles given to them. No wonder you're trying to defend SPE, you want to believe the same things that the study points toward. Also, not every sentence in the video needs to be scientific sounding. Sounding scientific is the most asinine thing to aspire to, but I guess you're more interested in appearances than anything else.
The Stanford Experiment may be bad design but before people rewrite history perhaps there is lots to learn? I am pretty sure you are NOT suggesting people are too good to ever commit dehumanizing atrocities. History is littered with too many examples of our depraved capabilities. The case for Zimbardo is just how close his study is reflected in the real-life example of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Perhaps this is a clear reflection that Zimbardo was correct concerning the potential for "good people" doing "bad things" and the role of authority. He has acknowledge that, as a participant in the study, he too "got caught up" in the scenario. I think it may be even more, given he dehumanized all the participants and manipulated the conditions. How far would he have let the situation go had his collogues not stepped in?
@Nick Arjoma What was the false premise? I am not following. Once you dehumanize bad things can happen. This experiment demonstrated this. Bad, bordering on unethical, research design - sure. Zimbardo dehumanized all the subjects in this experiment and it may have been in an attempt to reach a conclusion to satisfy his personal agenda. I don't profess to know, The premise however remains pretty sound and demonstrates it doesn't take a lot for good people to do bad things. Many of the subjects will try to distance themselves and claim they were "acting". Again they can do that, I dont know what the truth is but I do know that Milgram's experiment demonstrated a similar point and atrocities have been repeated throughout human history often while good people would stand by and let it happen.
I think I’d have to agree with Nick here. Designing an experiment badly (as in inserting your own biases to agree with an agenda) means you can no longer trust its conclusions. So in a way, the experiment didn’t really prove anything really. The conclusion (that it only takes a little for good people to turn bad) could be true or false - we just don’t know 🤷🏻♂️
@@NeuroEverything Agreed. As empirical research goes the experiment neither provided proof or disproved a hypothesis and I think that is the critical point. I am not so sure we can ever replicate the human elements that Zimbardo was trying to shed light on in a human experiment. I really am not sure why we would try given the authentic examples exist in real life and it is the correlation with real life that has struck me. To ignore that is consequential.
Why don't you invest your intellect and energies into reviewing Transgender Reseach? You clear have the capacity and skills. You make the point Zimbardo was driven more by ideology than science but would you say he has been proven correct? Park that for a moment. There is a plethora of real harms involving children under the umbrella of "affirming care". The research is horrifically poor in design and applies bias laiden methodologies. You have turned Zimbardo into a crusade but you can't explain why this is actually replicated in real life. Meanwhile children are castrated.
Its really SAD that i wont be surprised if trump one day actually went out of his way to tweet in all caps "this is the worst youtube channel" Cant get anymore donald trump-y lol
