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RE: Exploring the Dark Side of Humanity: the Stanford Prison Experiment
I am reading about this experiment for the very first time. I have always wondered why police for instance, are usually so sadistic and how that sadism cuts across all types of people as soon as they join the force. This experiment explains that but I wonder, is it possible to turn all types of people to do heroic and exhibit positive behaviour towards other people by providing a certain set of conditions?
Awesome and educative post.
This is such a good question Green, and I am looking forward to seeing what @churchboy will have to say about this. As for me, I believe this it is possible indeed, and for the simple reason that it feels good to be good. It is as if our physiology 'rewards' us for being nice. Positive emotions trigger a whole bunch of brain reactions that makes us feel relaxed and purposeful. This comes from trusting people, from being altruistic, from having positive interactions with humans and pets.
I know you are the one who asked this question first; but I would love to hear your opinion about this. Are you more of a Freudian and believe that humans are inherently cruel, or of a humanistic (they oppose to Freud's views on most things)?
The helpers high? I think it's something that can be done too. At least giving always feels so good. Just like the ad below shows, no one is born bad.
Just that we tend to learn the bad things pretty quickly and slow to unlearn it. So I guess I lean towards the humanistic part of the equation :)
😍 ❤ Ooowww
I wrote a short post sometime months ago on helper's high.
Green, it looks like reading your entire blog should be yet another thing to add to my 'to do' summer list!
That will be awesome :D
How would you manage to do that? Green writes a lot!
Dr Phil Zimbardo talked about another experiment that would do just that about five years ago. I will have to find out the result of that experiment if it did take off. But as our wonderful Abigail and Nelson Mandela both said, we are inherently good and our psyche, from birth, seems to reward us with good feelings when we do good things and treat others well.
Thanks so much for being here. You're appreciated.
Oh, beautiful!
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to discuss such an interesting topic 😘