blog #2

This week in class we pretty much just went over everything that we read in chapter one. We talked about all of the different perspectives and who was important to each one. Yesterday in class we split up into small groups and each read about a different famous studies/experiments. If you ask me, most of them are completely ridiculous which is probably why I found them to be so intriguing. So, I decided to look up The Stanford Prison Experiment  and I found some pretty crazy stuff. Actually, I found a website that takes you through the entire experiment. http://www.prisonexp.org/ As I was reading, I found it interesting that each of them was actually arrested from their homes or where ever they happened to be at the time. Each person was treated like they were an actual criminal. They were basically dehumanized. Throughout the experiment they were humiliated repeatedly, stripped of their possessions, names, and clothing. Even they were only trying to create a functional simulation, I think that things got a bit out of hand. "Prisoners" began to rebel and the guards acted like they had all of the power in the world. The guards didn't seem to have any regret or any feelings whatsoever. It amazes me that they were able to go through the experiment treating people, actual human beings, in such cruel ways and not be even slightly bothered by it. The things that these prisoners and guards went through is absolutely incredible. I never would have thought peoples moods, thoughts and behaviors could change so much in such a small amount of time. Then again, people are still just people even if they are participating in an experiment. If you give someone power, chances are they are going to use that power, and it is going to go straight to their head. As far as the prisoners go though, I was thinking about how their self-esteem just completely vanished and how they had become so mentally weak. I think that credit for those feeling and emotions can be given to the learned helplessness that we talked about in class. I decided to do a little more research on learned helplessness and I found a video on YouTube about it that I really liked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmFOmprTt0&feature=g-vrec&context=G25f04afRVAAAAAAAAAQ It basically is showing what learned helplessness feels like, only it is on a much smaller scale than The Stanford Prison Experiment was. These prisoners were constantly ripped on. Nothing they did was right. They were all criminals and their was nothing they could do about it. I think that they all started to give up hope. In the past when they rebelled they were just constantly shut down. I think it got to the point where they felt helpless and that was just the way it was going to be. After the experiment was shut down they interviewed one of the men that had been a guard during the experiment. I found his response to be very interesting. I was able to find a video clip of one of the prisoners talking about how he felt completely helpless and a clip of the guard that was interviewed after the experiment had ended.
Helpless Prisoner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDy4ZtB2fU
Guard Interviewhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQnOkmvigi0&feature=plcp&context=C3e40887UDOEgsToPDskI_cnTmmD_k1DMvp38GkXDK