Blogger 3: Revenge of the blog

"The Stanford Prison Experiment"
1. Zimbardo's primary goal through this experiment was to better understand the process of people becoming prisoners and losing all of their rights. He also sought to get a better understanding of the social power that prison guards have.
2. The profiles of those selected for the experiment were "normal-average." They consisted of twenty Caucasians and one oriental that were middle-class college-aged males. They were all "emotionally stable, physically healthy, mature," as well as avid law abiders. This certain profile is significant because their was no noticeable difference between the prisoners and the guards, so the experiment could really speak for itself.
3. The "process" for becoming a prisoner that Zimbardo speaks of is the phases that it takes for a person to become a prisoner. A person does not automatically become a prisoner just because they are handcuffed. They have to first have a number of demeaning things done to them until they accept the fact that they are prisoners and are ready to follow the prison rules.
4. The two have a approach by the guards has the inverse effect on the prisoners. For example, the more strict that the guards became, the more obedient the prisoners were.
5. As a result of the prison "riot" that occurred the guards became a lot more powerful. They put the leaders in solitary confinement and then put them with the good prisoners so that this would not happen again. They also began to harass and intimidate prisoners more effectively.
6. The prisoners did not respect themselves because they were always being put down by the guards and no one was their to pick them back up. They did not respect other prisoners because the other prisoners just watched as the guards humiliated them. They also did not have any personal conversations where they got to know each other better, so they probably did not know how to pick each other back up.
7. The journal of Guard A shows that Zimbardo was completely right by referring to this experiment as the "gradual Kafkaesque metamorphosis of good into evil. I say this because Guard A started off as a nonaggressive pacifist that could never see himself as a violent man with power. However, as the experiment advanced, this man went into a power-hungry abusive guard. He went from struggling to not smile at the prisoners to beating them and trying to force food down their mouths.
8. The reasons that anyone would volunteer to be prisoners are that they either needed the money or always wanted to see what it would be like to be a prisoner in a jail.
9. The mind can keep people in jail by having everything around it seem like jail. The loss of freedoms and constant abuse by guards can make the mind think it is in jail. Also, after the prisoner gets out, the mental scarring from that situation can make them believe that they are still prisoners.

"Uncivil Disobedience: Violating the Rules for Breaking the Law"
1. The organizations today are different from those of the past because they do not handle situations with the same care. Those that showed civil disobedience in the past were peaceful about it and went along with whatever punishment they deserved. They showed a respect for authority that is commonly ignored today.
2. The "four essential components for civil disobedience" are to "identify an unjust law," to "refuse to obey it," to "accept the consequences," and most importantly, but often forgotten, to self-purify.
3. The teaching of civil disobedience, according to the authors has been slightly defective. The teachers have taught students to not only do things like stand for what they think is right, but also think of those from the past that showed civil disobedience. However, they do not tell them to accept the consequences or self-purify afterward. Because of this, kids just go out and show full disobedience and fight the consequences to follow. This gets them into worse trouble and makes their image look bad.