Two classical social psychological studies conducted in the 1960’s and early 1970’s truly tested human behavior under extreme situations. One of the studies was conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram (the obedience/shock study) and the other famous one was conducted by Dr. Philip Zimbardo (the Stanford Prison study).
Please read about the Milgram’s “obedience” study and Zimbardo’s prison study in the chapter on Social Psychology (Chapter 14).
Here is a weblink to read/watch more about the Stanford prison study.
http://www.prisonexp.org/
After reading and/or watching these experiments, discuss why they were so controversial. Were any ethical guidelines violated? If yes, what were some of them? Do you think that these studies were valuable to society, and should they have been conducted at all?
As a side note, several years ago I attended the Western Psychological Association conference and I watched the 2015 Hollywood version of the prison study called “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” Dr. Zimbardo was there with his wife, Christina Maslach, to answer questions after the film screening. Out of curiosity, did any of you watch the film? If you did, what did you think?
