Dr. Philip Zimbardo's Case Study

I think one of the main points Philip Zimbardo is making, is that anyone, even the nicest person, can turn "evil" and do bad things. This main point came up right away with the American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib Prison. These American soldiers were all good people before going to this prison. While at the prison they were surrounded by others torturing the prisoners. After being around this behavior, the other American soldiers joined in. They turned "evil" because of the activities the others were doing to the prisoners, to get information. These actions can somewhat relate to conformity. The American soldiers could have been pressured into joining the horrific activities going on at the prison. They conformed to the norms of what was happening

Mob mentality and herd behavior have a negative behavior on people because of their individuality and rational thinking. People are influenced by others behaviors in a group. They can have negative and positive acts on people having individual thinking and it changes people's rational thinking. In the teleplay “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” written by Rod Serling, the article “When Good people Do Bad Things” written by Ann Trafton, and the article “Why Do People Follow The Crowd” reported by ABC news, when someone does not want to share their own idea they do not feel like sharing as a groups. People can also act differently in a group because they do not want to be embarrassed with others.

In 1964 kitty genovese was stabbed and raped near her hapartment in kew gardens, queens while more than 30 people stood by and watched as the murderer left repeatedly and came back to “ finish the job”. No one called the police.This is the bystander effect when individuals do not offer help to a victim when numerous other people are present,because they feel like the other person will call or help and no one ever does. Social conformity is a type of influence that results in a change of behavior or belief in order to fit in with a group. This is not a new issue we have seen examples of this in The salem witchcraft trials, and the red scare this shows people will often conform to what society deems as acceptable to avoid persecution from their peers,despite the strain it puts on their moral and ethical values.

Imagine you and your group of friends were responsible for a man's life who desperately sought for help, but your group mocked or even ignored him instead. This was the major plot that occurred in the story "The Man in the Well" by Ira Sher. An interesting theme of this story is that groups of people tend to act based on their groups impulse and not their own. Though the negative effect of peer pressure might be the cause of why groups, cliques, and gangs do what they do, their behavior alone tends to be much different than when they are alone. It's as if each character themselves goes through a sudden temporary transformation. However, an interesting p three key concepts, which are personality, actions, and decisions, tend to be influenced

In an article titled, Mob Mentality, it describes the mob mentality occurring during a football game, the author states, “In the name of a sporting event, in protest of a wrong call, the customers threw bottles, trash, whatever they could grip in the direction of the officials. Jaguars wide receiver Jimmy Smith later said the players feared for their lives (Shelton 1)”. Those who attended the game were out of control because of the influence of others around them. If one person disagrees with a call and throws things at officials, other people will think it is ok for them to take similar actions. When everyone started throwing random objects around, the players were terrified for their lives. The inappropriate behaviors of the crowd can cause a player to not want to play or a fan to not want to attend games because the all the fun has been sucked out. Without a positive behavior from everyone, the whole point of the game is lost. Another example of individuals being affected by the loss of others individuality is from an article titled, Mob Mentality Denies a Person a Right to a Fair Trial. The writing focuses on how a people were not given a fair trial due to mob mentality during the Salem Witch Trials. The article mentions, “These normal townspeople, in a moral frenzy, made yet more and ever-wild accusations, until mob action and then murder ... cold-blooded murder of many innocent people (Pyatt 1)”. This quote describes how the normal townspeople were caught up in a mob, and took wild actions until someone would end up dead. In this period of time, the townspeople murdered many individuals who were accused of witchcraft. Although these individuals were accused, they never received a fair trial, meaning the mobs of townspeople were going around and murdering innocent people who did not deserve it. All these actions could lead people to believe trials are

It is often affirmed that as the most dominant species on planet earth, human beings essentially rule the way in which our world has evolved; we have cognitive abilities that allow us to explore a multitude of complex variables, utilize logic, formulate a wide range of choices, and act out our decisions. However, even as highly logical creatures, humans have the propensity to be influenced by the choices of others or information presented to them, form groups of like-minded individuals, and participate in behaviors they would likely not have undertaken on their own. This particular behavior has been coined the “mob mentality and under it, people appear to become mindless automatons that lack any ability to act on their own thoughts. While there are perfect examples of mob mentalities doing good, such as the pivotal march on Washington during the Civil rights movement of the 1960’s, to something as simple as the yearly gathering of like-minded individuals at the Burning Man Festival, there are far more insidious examples such as the Holocaust, the Salem Witch trials, and Bacon’s Rebellion. In the realm of human behavior, each of these “events” is representational of what psychology defines as a mob or herd mentality and this group behavior has been an intrinsic quality of human civilizations throughout history. As such, this writer believes that Bacon’s Rebellion is a prime example of the negative implications mob mentalities are capable of generating. However the

People wait for social cues before they decide how they should act. An example of this is, Kitty Genovese was murdered and 38 of her neighbours witnessed her getting murdered and heard her screaming for help, yet none of those 38 people helped her or even called the police until a while after she was dead ( Sonia Shechet Epstein ) . In William Golding's lord of the flies, the boys go on a pig hunt and Roger pretends to be the

Reputation in the past and in today’s world has played a major role in people’s decisions and actions. Crowd mentality has been integrated into society, causing people to copy or follow other’s actions within a crowd. Normally in these situations people do not consider the situation as a whole, instead they are pressured into what is deemed right. In the novel The Crucible Arthur Miller explains how persuasion through crowd mentality changes the perception of human reputation, which blinds those from reality.

Rebecca Saxe, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at MIT commented on the psychological trigger of mob mentality saying, "A group of people will often engage

Growing up we find ourselves striving to be accepted, and to be loved by everyone. Although, that is just not the case, in Carol Tavris’s essay “In Groups We Shrink” she recounts the times she had experienced people not coming forward when something bad happened and she explains to us why she thinks this is. I agree with Tavris when she says, that when people are in groups, it causes them to act and think differently than they would if they were by themselves. When Tavris says, “The reason is not necessarily that they are lazy, cowardly or have 50 other personality deficiencies; it has more to do with the nature of groups than the nature of individuals” (Tavris 228).

Extensive gatherings of individuals can make doubt outcasts. Unmindful individuals

I want to keep you informed about Dr. Zuzelski, she still owes $650.00 for July's California course. I sent Dr. Zuzelski an email on Tuesday, (per Chas's ok) requesting the tuition payment. Chas said that he spoke to her and that she needs more time to get a Stem Cell patient to pay the course tuition. Unfortunately Chas states this is not likely to happen until the end of the year. I told Chas that I do not want to carry the $650.00 balance into 2018, I'll wait patiently until December to receive the payment. Notes are added in Insighlty to follow up for the payment in Dec.

The bystander effect is both a social and psychological phenomenon in which an individual’s inclination towards showing helping behaviours are minimised by the influence of other people. Research has found that the more people acting as bystanders in a situation, the less likely it is that helping behaviours will be demonstrated. However in the correct conditions, where conditioned cues increase self-awareness, it is possible to reverse the bystander effect phenomenon. The bystander effect is prevalent in everyday life, and often decorates the news, shocking the world, especially when authority figures such as police men and women succumb to the effect. Diffusion of responsibility, ignorance of others interpretation of an event and self-consciousness are all social processes which appear to lead to social inhibition of helping behaviours and one of the main theories of the bystander effect is provided Latané and Darley (1970) whose cognitive model provides a series of decisions that can lead to social inhibition. The bystander effect is influenced by the conditions an individual is in when an event occurs, for example the bystander effect appears to be most dominant when an individual is in a group of strangers with low group cohesiveness. FINISH

The next few days, Zimbardo observed that the relationship between the guards and prisoners changed. The prisoners become more attached and dependent, the guards became more scornful towards them. The guards despise to the prisoners grew then prisoners became more submissive. The guards start to took full control of the prisoners. The prisoners show rebellion such as barricading themselves inside the cell by putting their beds against the doors. These make the guards enter each cell, stripped the prisoners naked and took the bed out. After that, the guards began to bully and intimidate the prisoners.

Research pushes the boundaries of human thinking. When put under certain circumstances humans react differently to how they would expect themselves to do. If you put someone in a situation and give them power over another, they automatically resort to making that person to feel inferior to them. The reasoning is behind this is who has granted them this authority. In 1971 at Stanford University, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted a study where he recruited college male students at the university to engage in the role of a prisoner or a guard. The two week experiment tested the psychology behind the authority of power. The experiment took place in the campus basement and it was transformed into a realistic county prison. The results were shocking