Philip Zimbardo was the leader of the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment — and an expert witness at Abu Ghraib
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo has seen good people turn evil, and he thinks he knows why. Phillip will use this 3 minute video to illustrate his points that feature many previously unseen and disturbing photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
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In March 2006, Salon.com published 279 photos and 19 videos from Abu Ghraib, one of the most extensive documentations to date of abuse in the notorious prison. Zimbardo claims, however, that many images in his video — which he obtained while serving as an expert witness for an Abu Ghraib defendant — have never before been published.
The Abu Ghraib prison made international headlines in 2004 when photographs of military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners were published around the world. Seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial and two, including Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to prison.
Zimbardo conducted a now-famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971, involving students who posed as prisoners and guards. Five days into the experiment, Zimbardo halted the study when the student guards began abusing the prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and simulate sex acts.
His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a “perfect storm” of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts.
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[..YouTube..] @canaan1967 I agree with you as i have served in Afghanistan. These pawns were salivating at the chance before they had the chance.
[..YouTube..] @canaan1967 I agree with you as i have served in Afghanistan. These pawns were salivating at the chance before they had the chance.
[..YouTube..] I know he’s got a lot of ground to cover, but this guy needs to slow down when he speaks, he sounds like he’s going to have a damn asthma attack by the end. Makes it uncomfortable to listen to him.
[..YouTube..] @Cubanmillionheir928 your’ doin fine keep on keepin on.
[..YouTube..] At 6:56….. “pretty horrific……” Are you kidding me? Where are the tongues cut out laying on the floor? Where are the dead bodies hanging from ropes? Where are the heads without torsos? This moron uses Abu Ghraib as an example of evil? I am at such a loss for words that the only thing I can think is a political agenda is at work here. A live beheading with a knife vs. standing with arms spread attached to fake electrical leads…. yep, definitely comparable evil.
[..YouTube..] Please write in complete sentences with actual clauses. Commas are not periods :) Sorry for the grammar harping, but I think you need to watch the vid again. The whole point is that ANYONE can succumb to societal pressures; during the prisoner experiment, even some of the most independent-willed college students had complete breakdowns in less than 2 days. It’s not just “weak-minded” people (or if it is, I think most of humanity is ‘weak-minded’, which is what I was saying in the first place).
[..YouTube..] Please write in complete sentences with actual clauses. Commas are not periods :) Sorry for the grammar harping, but I think you need to watch the vid again. The whole point is that ANYONE can succumb to societal pressures; during the prisoner experiment, even some of the most independent-willed college students had complete breakdowns in less than 2 days. It’s not just “weak-minded” people (or if it is, I think most of humanity is ‘weak-minded’, which is what I was saying in the first place).
[..YouTube..] You totally cannot get the point, he is trying to show you that circumstances, persvation and the need to conform , submit to authority makes it possible for good people to turn evil, in fact it’s those weak minded people who need to conform and cannot resist temptation.
[..YouTube..] You totally cannot get the point, he is trying to show you that circumstances, persvation and the need to conform , submit to authority makes it possible for good people to turn evil, in fact it’s those weak minded people who need to conform and cannot resist temptation.
[..YouTube..] Amazing… he married the woman who made him realise the immorrality of his own project and his responsibility to stop it.
[..YouTube..] Philip Zimbardo…your psychology movies are hilarious….sadly you have no baby here unlike all your other movies….you’re losing your touch man
[..YouTube..] Philip Zimbardo…your psychology movies are hilarious….sadly you have no baby here unlike all your other movies….you’re losing your touch man
[..YouTube..] Heelboy50 You make sense.
[..YouTube..] or perhaps people need society to survive (its what made us able to survive the other wild animals), and when humans are placed into a group, they inherently have more of an incentive to perform good actions (to be accepted by the group). However, when left to their own devices, with no one watching or holding them accountable, I believe one could argue strongly that humans are not good, but prone to evil and self-centeredness (not basically bad either, but just not immune to temptation)
[..YouTube..] People are basically good. If they were basically bad, mankind would have been extinct a long time ago.
[..YouTube..] depends. If it is a black goatee, well, that’s almost a stereotype for villain.
[..YouTube..] MC Escher was a Dutch man not a guy from switzerland. zimbardo is still a great scientist.
[..YouTube..] facial hair makes u look evil?
[..YouTube..] Great presentation, I wish they gave him more time.
[..YouTube..] Can anybody please give some background information? I would like to understand why Zimbardo seemed to be in a rush …
[..YouTube..] The part about self de-individuation reminds me of the Man with No Eyes from Cool Hand Luke. Having a recognizable face gives people something to grab onto mentally, and pulls them up to your level, hide the face and you become something other than human, something without human emotion and the limits that it imposes, capable of anything. I think this is why masks are inherently creepy.
[..YouTube..] Why on Earth did TED censor? This is not something that should ever be disclosed from the eyes of the people who authorized it, who excecuted it, who should be held accountable for their actions. Shame on Ted!
[..YouTube..] why all the violence? where is the peace? where is the understanding?? WHERE IS THE LOVE??? sheesh y cant we all think from the objective point instead of the subjective point? stop all these childishness. how can anybody truly bear to see a fellow human being tortured to such extent? shameful. disgraceful. unhonourable.
[..YouTube..] What I thought.
[..YouTube..] he’s almost 80 years old, give him a break.
[..YouTube..] Maybe evil comes from facial hair? You look evil, you act evil.
[..YouTube..] @LouF
Zimbardo is a psycho- stanford study is fascinating- however Zimbardo encouraged the guards to use creative torture to keep the prison “secure”. Many of the guards used excessive torture as they felt that this is what Zimbardo wanted of them- also Zimbardo’s dual role & lack of scientific method is what harmed the prisoners the most, he told obviously distressed participants that they couldn’t leave while in “character”-confusing them making them genuinely believe they were trapped, awful!
[..YouTube..] @LouFederer
Not only that but he still refuses to take responsibility for his fault in the incident and insists that he was a victim of the situation also, that he too fell into a role- I’m sick of him twisting the facts to try and look clean, I’m surprised he’s still allowed to practice and teach as he obviously is full of sh1t
However yes advocating goodness is a wonderful thought :D
[..YouTube..] Why does he call Escher a Swiss artist???
He’s Dutch.
[..YouTube..] Zimbardo is amazing. He is an inspiration. Those photos horrified me… I will always try to do my best to advocate goodness!
[..YouTube..] You’re just mad because you can’t grow one.
[..YouTube..] not OUR… the BUSH administration
[..YouTube..] Like Ming in Flash Gordon?
[..YouTube..] Even good people are forced to cause harm (call it evil if you wish) to others who have caused them harm. A good example is in a third world country, where a doctor harms people through negligence for maximising profits by not getting NEW needles. The authorities don’t arrest him due to many reasons; they get money, plus the cultural image of clashing with a doctor puts you in the grim light in some cultures. So individuals get fed up and beat up or kill the target i.e. evil doctor. Evil or not?
[..YouTube..] Isn’t it possible that the problem is one of context? What I mean is that good and evil are interchangeable depending on ones position in time, space, or situation. Is it possible that that good and evil are in fact that same thing, or like the yin yang, so wound together that they cannot be separated? So who is really evil, the kids who rebel against the law and standard of society, or the society which represses their nature? I don’t know; these are simply thoughts.
[..YouTube..] Right Phil….now look at the Saddam era.
[..YouTube..] I find it highly ironic that a man who does research on the causes of evil chooses to wear a stereotypically evil-looking goatee.
[..YouTube..] @ZombieEatYourBrains
yeah, he is sounding like kind of a douchebag.
[..YouTube..] @Naruto5tails
Why is that irony?
[..YouTube..] lol the irony is that the start talks about the devil and yet its 2 days from christmas ’09
[..YouTube..] That’s merely the report from the Diagnostic Cranial Crap Compilation. In addition is the Grammatically gastrointestinal ghastliness – Within your “physical embodiment” sentence, “subjectivity” is the subject. Of which, you concluded to be an argument. Indeed, your arguments are purely subjective
A true “arse” requires an American to instruct him on the proper use of the English language
[..YouTube..] 3) The real Doosy – The subjectivity of an assertion can be disclosed only by it’s asserter, thus, making it objectively assertable that his admittedly subjective assertions are obviously Bullshit. Particularly in light of the cognitive corruption from mutationally mental mutilations made evident by a zombie’s gastronomically neurological victim that reveals his hallucinations of arguments seen as physically embodied subjective assertions
[..YouTube..] 2) You had very simply “asserted” (emphasis on simply) that I supposedly am precisely what you proved to be by virtue of your mere “assertion” with nothing more than what is now, a second unexplained assertion. Yours is a ever-compounding, “exponential arrogance”
“Reinforcement” (support) is precisely what I’ve been noting, despite yours being unnotable due to it’s inexistence. However, pluralistic are my reinforcements, misperceived by fist attracting, dotted i’s
[..YouTube..] You waste no time in persuasively convincing one of that you’re a comatose typist. That statement is the epitome of why its said “never represent yourself”. Although that’s exclusively for lawyers, amongst whom, only the ACLU who argued American’s rights to pedophilia, would be stupid enough to make your argument
Its not that that statement is itself incorrect. It’s simply that an argument is comprised of much more (substantive support) than just the first 1% assertion
[..YouTube..] Ok, check this out, Jack. I have seen enough to conclude that you don’t possess the mental ability to even understand this but I’m going to lay it out anyway. Perhaps you have grade school children that can explain it to you?
Within 2 short replies to me, are contained so many defective thoughts that you must have used comment compression software to stuff it all in. I unzip it just to see that you should “zip it”.
Your latest masterpiece – 1) “An argument consists of opposing assertions”?
[..YouTube..] Ok, check this out, Jack. I have seen enough to conclude that you don’t possess the mental ability to even understand this but I’m going to lay it out anyway. Perhaps you have grade school children that can explain it to you?
Within 2 short replies to me, are contained so many defective thoughts that you must have used comment compression software to stuff it all in. I unzip it just to see that you should “zip it”.
Your latest masterpiece – 1) “An argument consists of opposing assertions”?
[..YouTube..] An argument consists of opposing assertions, I have very simply stated that I find you arrogant and verbose, which you have just reinforced in my eyes. The subjectivity of an assertion has no bearing on it’s physical embodiment as an assertion and therefore an argument.
I don’t know what my username has to do with this, other than acting as another tool through which you can convey such distasteful qualities as I have already mentioned.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
[..YouTube..] So evident is your void that you arrogantly accuse me of such, even while your comments are merely opinionated assertion. If you had an argument, you would have presented it already
[..YouTube..] So evident is your void that you arrogantly accuse me of such, even while your comments are merely opinionated assertion. If you had an argument, you would have presented it already
[..YouTube..] Thanks for giving the “heads up” on the activities of zombies. Awfully nice of you to have taken your neurologically nefarious, noggin nightmare & applied the pedatorily plummeted plundering of what is now your cavernously configured, cranial cavity to alerting others of that zombies eat brains preferentially
But you know you must inform others due to the deficiently dissatisfying meal that was skull sucked out of you