scholarly journals Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE): Icon and Controversy

Psychology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Devonis
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Prison Policy ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) took place at a time when the sources of authoritarianism and evil were a focal concern in psychology. It emerged from a tradition of activist social psychological research beginning with Solomon Asch in the 1940s and extending through Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the early 1960s. The SPE was a product of the research program of social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a member of the Stanford psychology faculty since 1968. Discussions among Zimbardo’s students in spring 1971 led to a plan to simulate a prison environment. They converted portions of the basement of a University building into a combination booking room and jail. Zimbardo and a number of his graduate and undergraduate students took on supervisory roles. Before the Experiment began, paid participants recruited through newspaper advertisements were screened to eliminate obvious psychopathology, then randomly assigned to either the role of ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner.’ On the first experimental morning August 14, 1971, actual local police simulated an arrest of each of the prisoner participants. After they arrived, blindfolded, a simulated booking took place. Guards escorted them to the prison hallway where prisoners were required to strip and exchange their clothing for simple shifts and slippers. After a simulated spray delousing, they entered makeshift cells. After this, the Experiment evolved as an extended improvisation, by both the guards and prisoners, on prison-related themes. Episodes of deprivation, bullying, and humiliation emerged unplanned. Originally planned to run for two weeks, the Experiment lasted only six days, prematurely terminated when its supervising personnel judged that the simulation had gotten out of their control. The coincidence of its termination with the Attica prison uprising in New York led to its immediate dissemination in the news. Since then the SPE has become one of the most iconic psychological studies of psychology’s modern era. Although intended to expose and ameliorate bad prison conditions, its effectiveness in this regard diminished during a rapid shift in US prison policy, in the mid-1970’s, from reform to repression. Over succeeding decades, the Experiment continued to stimulate the popular imagination, leading to an extensive replication on British television and its portrayal in two feature films. Soon after its original publication, the SPE attracted criticisms of its methodology. After 2010, critical scrutiny of the SPE as well as similar iconic studies from the 1960s and 1970s increased, fueled by the growing ‘replication crisis’ in psychology. This most recent phase of criticism reflects not just a turn toward reflexive disciplinary self-criticism but also the increased availability of archival sources for examination. The SPE continues to excite both passionate support and equally passionate obloquy, much as have other comparable simulations of human social behavior.

“It was a jet. It was a jet. It was a jet.”

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Jessica DuLong
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Staten Island ◽  
Creative Problem ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Maritime Infrastructure ◽  
Maritime Community ◽  
The U.S

This chapter provides a background of the waterborne evacuation that happened after the events of 9/11. New York harbor was, and is, a busy place — the third largest container port in the United States and a vital connection between New York City and the rest of the world. Manhattan is an island, and the realities of island real estate are what ushered the port's industries off Manhattan's shores and over to Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey in the 1960s and 1970s. By late 2001, maritime infrastructure had been replaced with ornamental fencing. On September 11, 2001, as the cascade of catastrophe unfolded, people found their fates altered by the absence of that infrastructure and discovered themselves dependent upon the creative problem solving of New York harbor's maritime community — waterfront workers who had been thrust beyond their usual occupations and into the role of first responders. Long before the U.S. Coast Guard's call for “all available boats” crackled out over marine radios, scores of ferries, tugs, dinner boats, sailing yachts, and other vessels had begun converging along Manhattan's shores. Hundreds of mariners shared their skills and equipment to conduct a massive, unplanned rescue. Within hours, nearly half a million people had been delivered from Manhattan by boat.

Consciousness-Raising

2020 ◽  
pp. 232-245
Author(s):  
Tabatha Leggett
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
First Person ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
Collective Voice ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
Feminist Consciousness ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines consciousness-raising as a means of challenging oppression. Bringing the #MeToo movement into contact with first-person accounts and criticisms of the radical feminist consciousness-raising groups that formed in New York and Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, it suggests that they remain an essential force to challenge female oppression today. It touches on the various ways that patriarchal structures silence women, how consciousness-raising undercuts this silencing by giving women a collective voice, and how social media can amplify this voice. Finally, it addresses common criticisms of consciousness-raising movements, especially concerning the disproportionate focus on white women’s concerns that they have historically represented and universalized. It touches on Kimberlé Crenhaw’s theory of intersectionality as well as Paulo Friere’s conception of critical consciousness theory to explore the notion of truly inclusive consciousness-raising movements.

Pro Familia and the reform of abortion laws in West Germany, 1967–1983

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-311
Author(s):  
Claudia Roesch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New York ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
The West ◽  
Reproductive Decision Making ◽  
Medical Emergencies ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

This article investigates the role of the West German family planning association Pro Familia in the abortion reform of the 1960s and 1970s. It examines the question of legal abortion from the perspective of reproductive decision-making and asks who was to make a decision about having an abortion in the reform process—the woman, her doctor, or a counsellor. During the early reform suggestions of §218 in the 1960s, Pro Familia supported the West German solution of allowing legal abortion only in medical emergencies. Opinions within the organization changed as leading members witnessed legalization in Great Britain and New York. The feminist movement and the Catholic opposition to legal abortion influenced positions in the reform phase of the 1970s. Meanwhile, Pro Familia put emphasis on compulsory pregnancy crisis counselling as aid in decision-making for individual women and a tool for putting a decision into practice. Throughout the reform process, Pro Familia continued to perceive legal abortion not as way to enable women to make their own decision but as a pragmatic solution to emergencies.

The Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Slonecker
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
Corporate America ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Acid Rock ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Aggressive Male ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Mainstream Society ◽  
The 1960S

In the decade after 1965, radicals responded to the alienating features of America’s technocratic society by developing alternative cultures that emphasized authenticity, individualism, and community. The counterculture emerged from a handful of 1950s bohemian enclaves, most notably the Beat subcultures in the Bay Area and Greenwich Village. But new influences shaped an eclectic and decentralized counterculture after 1965, first in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, then in urban areas and college towns, and, by the 1970s, on communes and in myriad counter-institutions. The psychedelic drug cultures around Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey gave rise to a mystical bent in some branches of the counterculture and influenced counterculture style in countless ways: acid rock redefined popular music; tie dye, long hair, repurposed clothes, and hip argot established a new style; and sexual mores loosened. Yet the counterculture’s reactionary elements were strong. In many counterculture communities, gender roles mirrored those of mainstream society, and aggressive male sexuality inhibited feminist spins on the sexual revolution. Entrepreneurs and corporate America refashioned the counterculture aesthetic into a marketable commodity, ignoring the counterculture’s incisive critique of capitalism. Yet the counterculture became the basis of authentic “right livelihoods” for others. Meanwhile, the politics of the counterculture defy ready categorization. The popular imagination often conflates hippies with radical peace activists. But New Leftists frequently excoriated the counterculture for rejecting political engagement in favor of hedonistic escapism or libertarian individualism. Both views miss the most important political aspects of the counterculture, which centered on the embodiment of a decentralized anarchist bent, expressed in the formation of counter-institutions like underground newspapers, urban and rural communes, head shops, and food co-ops. As the counterculture faded after 1975, its legacies became apparent in the redefinition of the American family, the advent of the personal computer, an increasing ecological and culinary consciousness, and the marijuana legalization movement.

Calendar Problems: March 2004

2004 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-197
Author(s):  
Steve Benson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

All the problems on this month's calendar originally appeared in, or were adapted from, problems that came from New York Interscholastic Mathematics League contests in the 1960s and 1970s.

Notes on the development of health psychology and behavioral medicine in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Lubek ◽  
Monica Ghabrial ◽  
Naomi Ennis ◽  
Sara Crann ◽  
Amanda Jenkins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Psychology ◽  
New York ◽  
Behavioral Medicine ◽  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
The United States ◽  
State University ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

A “standard” historiographical overview of the development of health psychology in the United States, alongside behavioral medicine, first summarizes previous disciplinary and professional histories. A “historicist” approach follows, focussing on a collective biographical summary of accumulated contributions of one cohort (1967–1971) at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Foundational developments of the two areas are highlighted, contextualized within their socio-political context, as are innovative cross-boundary collaboration on “precursor” studies from the 1960s and 1970s, before the official disciplines emerged. Research pathways are traced from social psychology to health psychology and from clinical psychology to behavioral medicine.

Africa in the Global Race for a Yellow Fever Vaccine

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-217
Author(s):  
Aro Velmet
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Yellow Fever Vaccine ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Vaccine Testing

The Pastorian yellow fever vaccine project interacted with British and American ventures, moving from Dakar to Paris, New York, and Tunis and back to Dakar. The French vaccine developed in this project caused dangerous meningoencephalitis in some children and was used to vaccinate more than fourteen million people in the 1940s. This chapter argues that both global networks of laboratory infrastructure and infrastructural absence in West Africa enabled the Pastorians to develop a viable prototype and ignore its adverse consequences. The technopolitics of vaccine testing and the global politics of laboratory networks interacted here to produce experimental success and practical disaster. The chapter concludes with an investigation of the mass campaigns of the late 1930s and early 1940s, deadly incidents of the 1950s, and the vaccine’s discontinuation in the 1960s and 1970s. It highlights the occasional competition and occasional rivalry with the Rockefeller Foundation and the British Empire.

The Provincialism Problem: Then and Now

ARTMargins ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-32
Author(s):  
Terry Smith
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Group ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Group I ◽  
Critical Responses ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Center Periphery

Published in the September 1974 issue of Artforum, my article “The Provincialism Problem” argued that a world art system, centered on the New York artworld, condemned artists elsewhere to misleadingly perceive their situation as necessarily subservient, and their art as lesser, secondary, and dependent. In fact, this system condemned all involved, including New York based artists, to a vicious cycle of mutual inequity. The article called for artists, critics, and curators to radically reimagine these relationships. Often cited in the decades since then, in recent years it is frequently used as a foil to demonstrate how, within the international artworld, the situation has improved significantly. In this essay, I review the acute awareness of these issues in the Australian artworld during the 1960s and 1970s, and the situation in New York in the early and mid-1970s that lead me to write the article in concert with other members of the Art & Language group. I note some of the critical responses to the article since its publication, explore key aspects of center-periphery theory, and conclude by arguing that the provincialism problem has not been solved—it has, rather, been globalized then neoliberalized, and thus remains problematic.

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