stanford prison experiment + further...

well. it's finally time for us to start writing on the blog. haha since it's the first contribution afterall, i guess i shall choose to start with something easy and familiar, plus something a bit further!

since deathnote wants to start with math and t-lymphocyte (please ask it to explain its nick -.-") wants to use aesthetics as a starting point, i shall begin with social science! a few points will be here and there, but i think examples are pretty flexible, so use them where you need them (:

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in the social science module in ki, one of the common topics studied is the comparison between social science and natural science. (essay questions on social science will usually ask if social science can be considered as a science!)

i think one of the points that we will first think of is experimentation! i think like i get this image that you can't actually put these little humans in a box and control their environment and their actions like the sims (i really like to kill my sims whenever i can.)

in natural sciences, scientists have to conduct tests, and have control groups. but for social sciences, social scientists run into problems...


* ethical constraints
many experiments cannot be carried out due to ethical reasons, such as when there may be negative effects on participants who take part in the study.

e.g. Stanford Prison Experiment
the stanford prison experiment was conducted in 1971 by researchers led by Philip Zimbardo, at stanford university. its purpose was to study the human responses to captivity and how captivity would affect the behaviour of both the guards and inmates in prison.

the experiment went out of control. seemingly normal undergraduates started to display genuine sadistic tendencies when they played the roles of prison guards. they humiliated the inmates in various ways (like denying trips to the washrooms and prisoners being forced to sleep naked on the floor!), and most of the inmates also seemed to internalise their roles as prisoners.


* humans change, they are not static or uniform.
in social science, it is difficult to replicate experiments - unlike in natural sciences.

e.g. BBC Prison Study (Haslam & Reicher, 2003)
a partial replication of the stanford prison experiment was done with greatly different results, the "guards" did not internalise their roles, and on day 6 (coincidences?), there was a Prison Break. after that, the "prisoners" even started to dominate the "guards"!

sources:
wiki: stanford prison experiment
official site of the stanford prison experiment
wiki: the experiment (BBC)

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well use your imagination to present these examples more effectively, like in short paragraphs or something. you are definitely not required to write one entire page describing the process of the stanford experiment! this example can also be used to describe the process of "scientific" experiments in social science, or how variables cannot be fully controlled etc. the sources will provide lots more information so read them!

examples are flexible!

\ \ / / bam.