Comments on: Is it legal to purposely drive someone crazy? http://www.unschooled.org/2007/08/is-it-legal-to-purposely-drive-someone-crazy/ It's been a long week... Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:04:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Sra. Bibliotecaria http://www.unschooled.org/2007/08/is-it-legal-to-purposely-drive-someone-crazy/comment-page-1/#comment-27 Sra. Bibliotecaria Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:54:03 +0000 http://www.unschooled.org/08/27/is-it-legal-to-purposely-drive-someone-crazy/#comment-27 Thank you for the recommendation. The remarkable thing to me about Zimbardo's work is that it blows away the idea that it could be "just a few bad apples," by showing that the actual structure of prison means that otherwise humane and thoughtful people can become monsters. Thank you for the recommendation. The remarkable thing to me about Zimbardo’s work is that it blows away the idea that it could be “just a few bad apples,” by showing that the actual structure of prison means that otherwise humane and thoughtful people can become monsters.

]]> By: Cafegirl http://www.unschooled.org/2007/08/is-it-legal-to-purposely-drive-someone-crazy/comment-page-1/#comment-26 Cafegirl Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:01:26 +0000 http://www.unschooled.org/08/27/is-it-legal-to-purposely-drive-someone-crazy/#comment-26 I'm reading a fascinating book right now that speaks to an aspect of this issue. The book is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo is the researcher who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971, wherein student volunteers were randomly assigned to be guards and prisoners in a fake prison designed specifically for this research. The goal was to study how the "prisoners" responded to the conditions of imprisonment, and a great deal did come up along those lines, but even more important was the effect on the students who had been randomly selected to be guards. Psychologically healthy (they'd all been pre-screened), decent people increasingly began behaving in horrible ways. In this book, Zimbardo reports on and analyzes this famous experiment in much more detail that he has ever made available before, and then makes comparisons to Abu Ghraib and other real situations. Very important reading, and very compelling, too. I encourage others to read it. I’m reading a fascinating book right now that speaks to an aspect of this issue. The book is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo is the researcher who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971, wherein student volunteers were randomly assigned to be guards and prisoners in a fake prison designed specifically for this research. The goal was to study how the “prisoners” responded to the conditions of imprisonment, and a great deal did come up along those lines, but even more important was the effect on the students who had been randomly selected to be guards. Psychologically healthy (they’d all been pre-screened), decent people increasingly began behaving in horrible ways. In this book, Zimbardo reports on and analyzes this famous experiment in much more detail that he has ever made available before, and then makes comparisons to Abu Ghraib and other real situations.

Very important reading, and very compelling, too. I encourage others to read it.

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