People have a tendency to respond to authority that even SEEMS legitimate. This reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. (We briefly mentioned this in class last week). Professor Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment for which he asked for volunteers. Out of 70ish applicants, 24 were selected. Half of these college aged men were to be prison guards, and the other half were assigned to be inmates. The purpose of this experiment was to see how people would react to their given positions.
The “police” officers were given mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact, and the inmates were put in very uncomfortable clothing. To begin the experiment the “prisoners” were “arrested” from their homes for armed robbery.
They were then taken to “prison” (The basement of a building on campus) and put into their respective roles.
This rapidly became very Lord Of The Flies-esque and the students jumped into their roles far more intensely than Zimbardo had expected. By day three people were being beaten, and physically and mentally destroyed by one another. One of the most interesting aspects of the “prisoners” is that they did not choose to just walk away from the experiment- which after all they were VOLUNTEERS, nothing was holding them back from doing this. Zimbardo decided to end the experiment after only six days instead of fourteen because of the conditions.
The experiment is said to have “demonstrated the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support.”
My question is- do you think that these actions and feelings are inherent in all human beings? The feelings of submitting to the authority presented to you- and the feelings of using, possibly abusing the power that we are given?
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It seems a near impossible question to pinpoint what feelings are present deep within the consciences of every person; to do so would presuppose that all people are inherently alike, which immediately implies a natural law mindset, a universal understanding of morality. Rather, the argument boils down into one of nurture versus nature; that is, would one submit to authority because they naturally feel they must or because they were raised to do so? That being said, I will say a natural obedience is not automatic in everyone, and conversely, an automatic abuse of power will not occur in anyone who comes to a position of strength.
ReplyDeleteThis experiment is a great example not only of people willing to submit to the images of authority, as the "guards" did not have any more authority than the "prisoners" themselves outside of the experiment. The guards merely had some glasses and nightsticks, where as the prisoners had rags and chains on their ankles. The guards definitely abused their powers as well and arguably went on a power trip. They were put in charge of the prisoners and completely mistreated them simply because they could.
ReplyDeleteI think that what this experiment shows is that unrestrained authority can lead to undesirable consequences. However, one must keep in mind that these "officers" apparently had no constraints if the experiment led to them beating the prisoners. While I'm sure real corrections officers aren't exactly friendly to the prisoners, I also doubt they have free reign to beat them.
ReplyDeleteI think the main point of the Zimbardo study was how people in both positions, guards and prisoners, accept roles and how easily people are socialized into certain roles based on the given society and context into which they are taught. Also, I think we should look at how even amongst the guards a leader emerged who then controlled the rest of the guards, which shows how true the saying, "if you give an inch, they will take a yard" is, especially in relation to power.
ReplyDeleteThis experiment does raise some profound concerns about the nature of humans. The experiment had to be stopped six days in out of the planned fourteen. The volunteers were immediately absorbed into their "new" social conditions: prisoner and guard. It is shocking to see that the guards went as far as beating the prisoners. As far as authority, I think Lord of the Flies portrays it very well in human nature: authority, legitimate or not, is given to those who take it. There is some hint of Darwinism involved here.
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