State vs aftermarket exhaust

[tbigity]

that was the neat thing about this...it was technically out of the system. Granted, that mentality could have been furnished by the system, but the only stimulus they had was what was going on in their heads. The only instruction they were given was "these students are guards, these are the inmates." Kinda like a "we become what we know and nothing more" thing. If nothing else it just showed the human reluctancy to change :-/

[kpaske]

I think it more likely highlights some of the natural tendencies of human beings who are placed in extremely unbalanced positions of power.

Then again, maybe they just behaved the way they thought inmates and guards were supposed to act based on previous experience (i.e. movies, tv, etc). It would be hard to eliminate this effect from the equation.

But we're getting off topic...

[tbigity]

Then again, maybe they just behaved the way they thought inmates and guards were supposed to act based on previous experience (i.e. movies, tv, etc). It would be hard to eliminate this effect from the equation.

I suppose I was unclear, because that was my point. In many, MANY fewer words. Can you start writing my posts for me?

[tbigity]

wyrrej: ZIMBARDO! THANK GOD!!! I tore my psyche books to shreds trying to find that. Thank you! Though I do think that is a bit deep for 3rd graders. You must have been a step above theothers for it to have made that big of a lasting impression on you, props!

Wormgod: I totally agree. It goes beyond just getting the matter taken care of. Go for it, man...take the stand. You have come this far and bent over backwards for them, might as well get some gain out of it all

[WyrreJ]

wyrrej: ZIMBARDO! THANK GOD!!! I tore my psyche books to shreds trying to find that. Thank you! Though I do think that is a bit deep for 3rd graders. You must have been a step above theothers for it to have made that big of a lasting impression on you, props!

No, not so deep, just a "formative experience" - it was about shaping the character of a young and impressionable mind, not analytical thinking. It's only in retrospect as an adult that I can describe some of the effects it had on my development.

[kpaske]

No, not so deep, just a "formative experience" - it was about shaping the character of a young and impressionable mind, not analytical thinking. It's only in retrospect as an adult that I can describe some of the effects it had on my development.

I'm not sure you ever really said how the experiment affected your young impressionable mind. Care to share?

[WyrreJ]

I'm not sure you ever really said how the experiment affected your young impressionable mind. Care to share?

Mostly just a visceral version of the effects I described. It was a really surreal day (although I didn't even know that word back then) - if the people in authority (teachers) could arbitrarily define who was "good" and who was "bad" (especially the flip-flop during lunch) then those terms don't mean anything deep, just the likes and dislikes of the people in charge. And since all of us followed along in large part with barely any questioning, that just because "everybody else" thought something was good/right doesn't mean it was, may actually mean it wasn't.

For example, as a kid I never understood all those commercials on tv that would proudly proclaim their product as being the most popular or the highest selling, or most preferred brand of whatever product it was. Seemed to me that would be a prime reason to avoid the brand - or at best neutral.

In retrospect my experience during "blue collar day" was probably a big reason I saw things that way since I had experienced just how easily people (well kids, but they were regular people to me since I was a kid too) could be convinced en masse to believe and do whatever they were told.

I remember from the discussion after the collars came off that the teachers were interested in focusing on prejudice and ethnic discrimination and how arbitrary it was, we might have been talking about south africa in social studies at the time. In Hawaii (where I grew up) ethnic discrimination is a whole different kind of thing than it is here on the mainland - a lot more complex and definitely not "black & white" or even "brown & white" like it has become here on the mainland. So I'd already had enough experience on the short-end of the racial stick that the discrimination focus wasn't anything special - getting the crap beat out of me after school just for being haole had already taught me that particular lesson.

FWIW, I misspoke earlier, it was 4th grade, not 3rd.

[kpaske]

I suppose I was unclear, because that was my point. In many, MANY fewer words.

Well, the point of the whole experiment, or at least what I read in the links that WyrreJ posted, was to show that the behavior of the participants was dictated by the situation, and not some predisposition in the individual. If you believe the argument that they were behaving based on some preconceived notion of how they were expected to behave, it sort of invalidates the experiment. Personally I think it was probably a combination of the two effects, but I think there is still some validity to what Zimbardo was trying to prove.

[tbigity]

Well, the point of the whole experiment, or at least what I read in the links that WyrreJ posted, was to show that the behavior of the participants was dictated by the situation, and not some predisposition in the individual. If you believe the argument that they were behaving based on some preconceived notion of how they were expected to behave, it sort of invalidates the experiment. Personally I think it was probably a combination of the two effects, but I think there is still some validity to what Zimbardo was trying to prove.

True to an extent. However, if they were simply stuck in a situation and told "you are guards you are inmates", nothing would happen. They would mill about, bumping into each other "oh, hello inmate #2"..."yes, yes, how is every little thing guard #5."

Without preconceived behavioral patterns, they would not have known where to begin. The only thing the situation dictated was their label or class.

This is studied along with the freudian lessons...all about the subsconscious. Point being that even if you want to do something different, humans have an overwhelming tendancy to do what their subconscious tells them to do, IE all it knows to do based on experience either 1st person or 2nd hand. Thus predisposition is the main controlling factor in this case.

[WyrreJ]

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
http://www.prisonexp.org/

When I was in 3rd grade, in public school, our teachers made us do a very similar thing. The entire grade of a couple of hundred kids in 7-8 classes was divided in half - kids who had to wear big construction paper blue collars and those who did not have to wear them. The blue collared were "bad" and the others were "good." The "bad" had to sit at their desks, be silent and do nothing as punishment for being "bad" while the good got to play games and stuff - any bad kids who did not behave got sent to "solitary." At various points in the day, the good and the bad got to interact with much more mild results than zimbardo got, but definitely along those lines.

Then after lunch break, the roles were reversed.

I remember being sent to "solitary" for just trying to find out WTF was going on.
And I remember after lunch when we switched roles and no longer had to wear a blue collar, just being so grateful that it was over that I didn't question why I was now "good" when I had been "bad" before.

Then, for the last hour or so of class, the collars came off and no one was "good" or "bad" and they had us all talk about the experience. It was probably one of the biggest, most clear-cut formative experiences of my youth. It taught me that 'authority' does not deserve respect simply for being authority and that societal or group beliefs (or prejudices) of what is "good" and "bad" are just as likely to be false as they are to be correct.

[WormGod]

So.... my EX said she can "make it go away as if it never happened". I never question lawyers and their Weirding Ways, and it sounds good to me, but I kind of relish the idea of going to court to make a stand and made my point of view heard. Although, my EX, who knows me quite damned well, said that the way I state my case (any case, to anyone, anywhere), she will be posting my bail to get me out for a Contempt ruling, heh. She is um... quite right though. Hell, I was found in contempt years ago just for fighting a traffic ticket! So ya, I should think about it.