The Menace Within

What happened in the basement of the psych building 40 years ago shocked the world. How do the guards, prisoners and researchers in the Stanford Prison Experiment feel about it now?

By Romesh ratnesar

 It began with an ad in the classifieds.
Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks. More than 70 people volunteered to take part in the study, to be conducted in a fake prison housed inside Jordan Hall, on Stanford's Main Quad. The leader of the study was 38-year-old psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. He and his fellow researchers selected 24 applicants and randomly assigned each to be a prisoner or a guard.
Zimbardo encouraged the guards to think of themselves as actual guards in a real prison. He made clear that prisoners could not be physically harmed, but said the guards should try to create an atmosphere in which the prisoners felt "powerless."
The study began on Sunday, August 17, 1971. But no one knew what, exactly, they were getting into.

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2011/julaug/features/spe.html 

 Med erfarenhet från svenska fängelsen fann jag artikeln intressant. (Nej, jag är inte kriminell, man kan ha med fängelsen att göra ändå)


One thing that I thought was interesting about the experiment was whether, if you believe society has assigned you a role, do you then assume the characteristics of that role? I teach at an inner city high school in Oakland. These kids don't have to go through experiments to witness horrible things. But what frustrates my colleagues and me is that we are creating great opportunities for these kids, we offer great support for them, why are they not taking advantage of it? Why are they dropping out of school? Why are they coming to school unprepared? I think a big reason is what the prison study shows—they fall into the role their society has made for them. 

Ovanstående stycke kräver eftertanke. Det gäller lika mycket för barn och ungdomar som växer upp i de förorter som många svenskar föraktar, som för svenska skuldslavar i finare villaområden.