Prison, a bad place to be?
Can’t really find time to blog nowadays, since there’s so many things I have to keep tabs on. However, I found this very interesting and since I shared it with my USP Human Relations class, why not share it with everyone else?
I can’t really explain much, so I’m copying and pasting the relevant section in my other forum thread here.
Scientific American’s blog, SciAm Observations recently posted a brief commentary on a prison simulation experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford in 1971 (who attended the same high school as Stanley Milgram). This experiment resurfaced after the Abu Ghraib fiasco came to light and SciAm posted the commentary in conjunction with somebody posting the documentary/educational film about the experiment on YouTube. The blog post link is at
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=stanford_prison_experiment_videos_on_you&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
and the links to the YouTube videos can be found there. Hope you’ll find it useful!
Good day!
HM
P.S.: I must warn you, the video quality is not exactly crystal clear and there are some bad sections but overall it’s still watchable. I’ve also tried looking for videos on the Milgram experiment on YouTube and found nothing, so it’s back to the books if you want to read up on it. 
Note to blog readers: As any psychology student would know Stanley Milgram conducted the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority at Yale back in 1963, to see how far people would obey authority to perform unethical tasks. It’s a funny experiment (with a huge dose of schadenfreude), when you know how the experiment is conducted (the poor subjects who’s supposed to administer the shock would definitely disagree on that). Go and check out the Wiki on Milgram experiment and you’ll see what I mean. IMHO, the accountant’s act must be impressive to leave such lasting impact on the subjects, too impressive perhaps. 
Anyhow, as the U.S. Armed Forces learnt to its detriment, you cannot leave prisoners to untrained prison wardens (intentionally or otherwise) since it could lead so easily to sadism on the guards’ part. Indeed, as the video shows, once reality and fantasy/simulation blurs, trouble ensues.
