If you can't be bothered reading it, don't bother posting
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/zimbard ... index.html
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Introduction by Russell Weinberger
In the summer of 1971, Philip Zimbardo and his team of reseachers at Stanford University designed and conducted a landmark psychology experiment that would forever change our understanding of human behavior. 24 volunteer college students were randomly assigned to roles of prisoners or guards in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at the university. The results were shocking. Within days, the "guards" turned authoritarian and sadistic while the "prisoners" became passive and started to show signs of severe depression. What was supposed to be a 2 week experiment had to be shut down after only six days.
Known simply as the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo's study is one of the most famous experiments in social psychology and remains, along with Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments, one of the most shocking. But that was just the beginning of the story.
The results of Zimbardo’s study were clear: human nature is malleable and the wrong situation can bring out the worst in most people. But what of the exception? What of the individual who does not succumb to the influence of environment and fights the powers that be?
Edge sat down with Zimbardo to discuss his latest thinking on the nature of heroism, where it comes from, and how it can be fostered.
— RW
PHILIP ZIMBARDO is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University. He is a founder of the National Center for the Psychology of Terrorism, and creator and co-director of The Shyness Clinic.
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THE HEROIC IMAGINANATION
PHILIP ZIMBARDO: One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is, Is there a counterpart to Hannah Arendt’s classical analysis of evil in terms of her phrase “the banality of evil.â€
