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Stripped

Tales of the naked city, from a Las Vegas dancer.


April 16, 2009 · 11:37 AM

A psychological boost away from the stage

By Justice

I spent tax day attending a lecture at UNLV. This was no ordinary lecture, even though it had all the attributes of an ordinary lecture including an old professor professing his knowledge and a bunch of partially interested college students filling about every other chair in the lecture hall and only present for the extra credit. Still, I could barely contain my excitement. The guest professor was the great social psychologist Philip Zimbardo.

To those unfamiliar with his brilliant work, Zimbardo is the genius behind the Stanford prison experiment. In the experiment, a group of the most mentally “normal” college-aged men were assigned to play the roles of guards and prisoners in a mock prison setting. The guards were complete with shiny, mirrored sunglasses (an idea Zimbardo got from the film Cool Hand Luke to prevent eye contact. The prisoners wore numbers on their uniforms instead of names in order to completely dehumanize them. I was at a massage parlor in China where they did the same thing to their employees. “I’ll have number thirty-six to start and then number twenty-eight to finish the evening.” Very strange.

Anyway, the experiment was originally scheduled to last for two weeks, but was cut short after just six days when the students immersed themselves into their roles. The guards became sadisitic and began psychologically torturing the prisoners who became depressed and submissive. This particular study is often brought up in famous cases of seemingly normal people who somehow turn “evil,” like the young soldiers of Abu Ghraib and the murderous S.S. officers. The outcome of the study supports the belief that in the right situation and under the right circumstances, anyone can commit heinous acts of cruelty upon their fellow man.

I completely geeked out when I saw Zimbardo. I’ve met and seen a handful of celebrities, but the people who really creep me out with their presence (in a good way) are freakishly intelligent or academically accomplished people. Little people kind of do the same thing to me, too. Zimbardo had quite the presence. He kind of looks like the cartoon representation of Satan. Same goatee and everything. I expected the place to be packed, considering psychology is such a popular major. I also expected more enthusiasm, considering he’s a living legend in the field. I may have even expected that the room would be filled beyond fire code regulations and I’d be turned away with an, “I’m sorry ma’am, this event is way too awesome and we’re not going to let anyone else in, not even if you show me your boobs.” And they would call me “ma’am” because I’d be older than any of the undergrads in the room.

Anyway, many customers ask me what I do for fun. They ask me how I pass the time outside of work. “Well … I like to hang out with my girlfriends and go to the pool. I go to the gym. Get my nails done,” and park with out a permit at UNLV to sit in on lectures about the psychology of the evil tendencies of humans. I’m no fun anymore, really.

5 Comments So Far

I would TOTALLY be geeking out to see Zimbardo speak. Have you seen the documentary with him in it "The Human Behaviour Experiments". Fascinating! We all have the capacity for evil behavior, and Zimbardo's experiment and research bears this out. I am always annoyed with people who deny their own capacity for darkness and evil, given the right (or wrong) circumstances.

I am also looking forward to seeing "Standard Operating Procedure" which I think also features Zimbardo.

"The devil inside, the devil inside...Every single one of us, the devil inside" - INXS

Posted by: aardvark on 4/16/09 at 10:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Original sin is with us even today. Jung stated that everyone has his shadow. Given the right circumstances everybody can be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Stanley Milgram started all of this with the experiments where the grad students gave (fake) electric shocks to volunteer participants.
Keep up your intellectual curiosity, Justice. It will serve you well when all else fails. Of course, making a buck at it is a different story.

Posted by: rrbill on 4/17/09 at 9:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)

hey justice,
i'm a fan of his too. his book could have been like 100 pages shorter, but lotsa good stuff in there. you ever wonder what you would have done if you were part of the SPE? i wonder about that and about what i would have done if i were one of milgram's subjects...
-rick lax

Posted by: ricky on 4/17/09 at 8:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)

This stay-at-home wife/mom is also a graduate student who is majoring in psychology......yep, know of Zimbardo and the infamous prison experiment......totally amazing! Good for you to go listen to him speak! ;-)

Posted by: MG on 4/18/09 at 11:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Standard Operating Procedure doesn't have Zimbardo in it, I was mistaken. It is still a great documentary on torture, the interpretation & truth/lies of photographs, and of obedience to authority.

Stanley Milgram's experiments are also profoundly enlightening on the nature of blind obedience & human nature in general.

Posted by: aardvark on 4/21/09 at 8:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

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