[HN Gopher] Remembering Phil Zimbardo (1933-2024)
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       Remembering Phil Zimbardo (1933-2024)
        
       Author : haunter
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2024-10-17 21:37 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.psychologytoday.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.psychologytoday.com)
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo
       | 
       | > Philip George Zimbardo (/zIm'ba:rdoU/; March 23, 1933 - October
       | 14, 2024) was an American psychologist and a professor emeritus
       | at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford
       | prison experiment, which was later criticized severely for both
       | ethical and scientific reasons. He has authored various
       | introductory psychology textbooks for college students, and other
       | notable works, including The Lucifer Effect, The Time Paradox,
       | and The Time Cure. He was also the initiator and president of the
       | Heroic Imagination Project.
        
         | getwiththeprog wrote:
         | The Lucifer Effect is a great book. It's thesis is "what makes
         | good people do bad things". I recommend it to anyone
         | considering doing bad things, or to anyone who knows good
         | people who do bad things.
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | that book [0] appears to be mostly a re-telling of the
           | situation, enactment and repercussions of the Stanford Prison
           | Experiment (SPE) with some speculative material tacked on the
           | front and back of that.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucifer_Effect
        
             | philwelch wrote:
             | And the Stanford Prison Experiment was somewhere between an
             | extraordinarily poorly designed experiment and an outright
             | hoax.
        
               | kfrzcode wrote:
               | Have you read the Lucifer Effect? It seems like you might
               | not have read the book.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Does the book contain an apology for perpetrating the
               | hoax? If not I'm not particularly interested.
               | 
               | The Stanford Prison Experiment is the kind of thing that
               | gives the entire field of psychology a bad reputation.
               | It's literally used as a case study in how not to design
               | experiments.
        
       | drfuchs wrote:
       | Fun Fact: The Stanford Computer Science Department was (mostly)
       | housed in Margaret Jacks Hall from 1980 - 1996, and if you went
       | down to the basement where the department's mainframes and
       | Arpanet IMP and phototypesetters lived, just around the corner
       | were the "cells" where the Prison Experiment took place. Creepy.
        
         | yapyap wrote:
         | :( This is even worse considering that the prison experiments
         | turned out to be highly influenced by Zimbardo and eventually
         | his wife put a stop to him more or less telling the guards to
         | abuse the prisoners
         | 
         | Basically it's a sca
         | 
         | Edit: source https://scribe.usc.edu/the-stanford-prison-
         | experiment-a-sham...
        
         | canjobear wrote:
         | It's not hard to find the hall. Grad student offices now, I
         | believe.
        
           | lenerdenator wrote:
           | So they still harbor the same amount of mental and emotional
           | strain, is what you're saying?
        
       | yapyap wrote:
       | I get that the writer of this article is great friends with
       | Philip but I think it's not fair to mention the Stanford Prison
       | Experiment and then not mention the fact that it turned out to be
       | a sham study.
       | 
       | https://scribe.usc.edu/the-stanford-prison-experiment-a-sham...
        
         | BeetleB wrote:
         | He responded to many of the accusations here:
         | 
         | https://www.prisonexp.org/response
        
         | armoredkitten wrote:
         | Not to mention the article says it "was also instrumental in
         | changing how people are treated during psychological research"
         | -- Uhh, yeah, because the lack of ethical safeguards in the
         | study became a major issue and we realized we needed to correct
         | that. You don't get credit for ethics reforms by _being the
         | unethical person._
        
         | ffujdefvjg wrote:
         | SPE was fraud, he told the guards to act like "tough guards"
         | and then said publicly "the guards were given no specific
         | instruction or training on how to be guards," which is what
         | made it probably the most famous psychology study of all time.
         | 
         | https://gen.medium.com/the-lifespan-of-a-lie-d869212b1f62
         | 
         | https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/14/17464516/st...
        
           | robjwells wrote:
           | Archive link for Ben Blum's article: https://archive.ph/kn1Eb
           | 
           | The two scientists who conducted "The BBC Prison Study" in
           | the early 2000s wrote about the revelations in the Zimbardo
           | archive material here:
           | https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/time-change-story
           | 
           | Thibault Le Texier, whose book History of a Lie brought this
           | information to light, wrote a summary paper in the American
           | Psychologist:
           | https://letexier.org/IMG/pdf/LeTexier_Debunking-the-
           | SPE_Amer...
        
           | CamperBob2 wrote:
           | As if real prison guards in oppressive regimes spend a lot of
           | time in ethics classes.
           | 
           | The idea behind SPE was not to ask if something _could_
           | happen or how it _should_ happen, but to ask how something
           | _did_ happen. It achieved the results it was intended to
           | achieve, as did the similarly- "discredited" work by Milgram.
           | 
           | The conclusion in both cases was inescapable: if you order
           | someone to commit an atrocity and they refuse, all you have
           | to do is to ask the next person in line. You won't have to go
           | very far or wait very long.
        
       | phlakaton wrote:
       | At Stanford Zimbardo taught one of the most popular classes in
       | the university, "The Psychology of Mind Control." From my
       | roommates I understand he would talk about techniques of
       | manipulation used by cults and despots.
       | 
       | It surprises me not at all that Zimbardo would be involved, in
       | the end, with a project warning about Donald Trump.
       | 
       | RIP.
        
         | wslh wrote:
         | > It surprises me not at all that Zimbardo would be involved,
         | in the end, with a project warning about Donald Trump.
         | 
         | But from a non-partisan perspective, it's important to
         | recognize that these kinds of psychological techniques are used
         | by politicians across the entire spectrum.
        
           | ellisv wrote:
           | Methods of persuasion and influence are used widely for all
           | types of advertising and marketing, but some methods are
           | employed more frequently by some groups than others.
        
       | wslh wrote:
       | I think Zimbardo's work on shyness is a valuable contribution
       | that could resonate with the HN community, especially given the
       | focus on introspection and analytical thinking here. His book on
       | the subject [1] offers insights that might be relevant to many.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/672266.Shyness
        
       | wodniok wrote:
       | I watch his TED talk once a year about the psychology of evil and
       | make me aware of the seven rules that he has established.
       | 
       | 7 Processes that Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil
       | 
       | 1. Mindlessly taking the first small step.
       | 
       | 2. Dehumanization of others.
       | 
       | 3. De-individuation of self (anonymity).
       | 
       | 4. Diffusion of personal responsibility.
       | 
       | 5. Blind obedience to authority
       | 
       | 6. Uncritical conformity to group norms
       | 
       | 7. Passive tolerance of evil through inaction or indifference
       | 
       | https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_the_psychology_of_...
        
       | szundi wrote:
       | Is this the cheater Zimbardo who completely lied how the most
       | popular prison experiment of the world was falsified?
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-19 23:01 UTC)