In 1971, Dr. Phillip Zimbardo conducted a controversial experiment to test humans’ behavioral responses to captivity, i.e. how humans react when placed in varying authoritative and submissive positions within a controlled environment. This experiment became known as “The Stanford Prison Experiment”—the implications of which have both fascinated and frightened the psychiatric community at large for more than three decades. I’ve included the first part of an excellent documentary for you to watch. After viewing this documentary, I’d be curious to know what you think Zimbardo’s experiment teaches us about the human psyche, if any such lesson can be learned within so-called “controlled environments” like Stanford’s make believe prison. Let us know what you think in the comments section. We’ll talk again soon…
Thanks Ryan, this video was really eye opening and scary at the same time! I watched the rest of the programs. Mr. Rushkoff has a few other programs I plan to watch—all seem interesting.
I shared some of the information with my teenager and we had a nice conversation. The new generation is being raised with a weak set of values making them very vulnerable to the marketing by people who don’t care about their well being. The more aware we are of the tricks being played, the more capable we are of resisting and giving them the tools they need at a young age not to be vulnerable to this kind of marketing.
Thanks again for sharing such thought provoking topics.
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.” TheMerchants Of Cool is a brilliant analysis of the incorporation of youth pop-culture that Ruskhoff created while working as a correspondent for PBS Frontline. This is a very entertaining documentary. You’ll learn a lot too. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Thanks to dbking for permission to use this Photo.
It was meant to be a special Halloween night episode of the American radio program, Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed by 23-year old Orson Welles, the program was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel The War of the Worlds. The screenplay for the show introduced an unprecedented innovation for American radio: use of a fake newscast to provide listeners with the experience of actually living through an alien invasion.
Broadcast from a studio in New York City on October 30, 1938, the program was presented as an ordinary music program that was frequently interrupted by news bulletins. After first describing strange explosions on Mars (Welles played a prominent astronomer), listeners were then told of the landing of a strange “meteorite” in Grover’s Mills, New Jersey. The meteorite turns out to be a Martian capsule which then destroys hundreds of onlookers with “heat rays”. As the episode continued, more Martian ships land and devastation is unleashed across the entire United States.
Despite military resistance, the Martian invaders prove too strong and unleash terrible weapons including “poison gas” sprayed into the air. New York City is invaded by “great machines” wading across the Hudson River. Coverage of the invasion is provided by a “news reporter” who describes “people dropping like flies” until he is killed by the poison gas himself. The broadcast ends with Welles (in his role as the astronomer) telling listeners about the devastation and how the Martians were destroyed by Earth’s bacteria.
Later reports came out about the”panic” the resulted from the broadcast but there is still debate over how widespread it really was. Although disclaimers that the invasion was fictional were inserted at several points in the program, many listeners were still convinced that the invasion was real . Later estimates placed the number of listeners at six million with 1.2 million believing it to be “genuinely true”. Incidents of actual panic remain scarce although reports of people fleeing their homes or hiding in their cellars to avoid the “poison gas” came out afterward. (more…)
How do we choose a life partner? Magazine articles on choosing the right mate abound. “What should you look for in that special someone?” “What is the ideal man/woman?” Take a minute to think about that. What do you want in a life partner? What words come to mind to describe your Princess or Prince Charming? Whatever you’re looking for, or have already found, the words you have chosen to describe your “ideal mate” are almost certainly personality traits: kind, considerate, funny, ambitious, loving.
Somewhere on your list are probably good-looking and healthy, but even things like health are affected by the personality. The things you want in a life partner are pretty much the same things that everyone else is looking for.
So, do we get what we’re looking for? Generally, we do. But, a better question might be, are we happy with what we get? Well, that depends upon what you were looking for in the first place. You are most likely to be happy if you look for, and end up with, someone who is agreeable, emotionally stable, and open.
The next question that might come to mind is how can we know if the relationship with that special someone will last? Well, for starters you can assume that marrying someone who is the opposite of agreeable, emotionally stable, and open, is probably a bad idea. Low impulse control and lack of dependability also predict relationship breakup. And, finally, relationships seem to work best when the partners are similar in background, religion, goals, education, and personality. Fortunately, we tend to meet people like ourselves, because we gravitate toward certain types of situations that are compatible with our own personalities. Selection of situations, then, enhances our chances for meeting like-minded people. If, for example, you are bookish and quiet, you are likely to spend time in a library or museum, where you will meet other bookish and quiet people.
So, have you found what you’re looking for? Are you more alike or different? Please share your thoughts with our Ashworth University psychology community!
Thanks to auntyevil for permission to use this Photo.
One concept that’s particularly influential in contemporary culture is that of social currency, an abstract exchange value that we’re all unconsciously aware of and have perhaps unknowingly utilized as a tool to gain interactive access to others on a social level. Content is essentially seen as a medium for interaction, not an end in itself, but more importantly a basis for human interaction. A new study was recently published on the “psychology of social networks” and the researchers do an admirable job of piecing together the social puzzle without drawing too many predetermined conclusions. In other words, within an Internet-oriented context, they accept that the network model of human communication can not be studied from a static perspective. The behavior of humans in an online environment does not parallel that of monkeys in a cage, perhaps less due to the complexity of humans than the fact that the virtual cage is always unlocked, permitting us to come and go as we please—as long as we’re never alone of course. Check out this interesting study and please share your perspectives with the Ashworth student community.
Thanks to Boris Anthony for permission to use this Photo.
Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking theories on media communications and the psycho-social impact of technological development made him both a very respected and controversial figure beginning in the 1950’s. Seen by many as a prophet of our contemporary media filtered age, McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message” theory, in which the communications medium itself (microphone, television, computer, letter) is more directly related to the meaning and ultimate impact of a given message than the actual “content” (intellectual/rational meaning) continues to gain depth as the decades pass.
I recently discovered an excellent audio-video archive of McLuhan’s work on the CBC web site. This is a great primer for our psychology students unfamiliar with his work and I strongly encourage you to check this archive out by clicking here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on McLuhan, a thinker who still truly remains ahead of his time.
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University Psychology Program
In my spare (ha ha) time, I really need to sit down and compile a list of videos for classroom use, especially in biological psychology. So many new ones are popping up each day. I think the days of publishers providing a DVD of video clips along with textbooks are soon to be over.Nature launched their new site recently, and although the content covers the many branches of science found in the journal, several are appropriate for biopsych. I really enjoyed the clips on Brain-Machine Interfaces, and I plan to use with my students next quarter. I’ve always had a love for linguistics (I’m such a party girl), and the Language Evolution clips caught my eye. Evolution topics are well-represented, with clips on Neanderthal DNA and Hominid Evolution and Development. For fun, I had to watch the Moray eel films.
I liked the way the films featured the scientists working on the topic, discussing their work in their own words. Students, especially those with grad school plans, really need to see this.
Dr. Laura Freberg
Creator of Laura’s Psychology Blog
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger
*Since receiving her Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA, Dr. Laura Freberg has earned a reputation for being one of the leading educational minds in the psychology field. She’s the author of numerous well respected textbooks and currently serves as a Professor of Psychology at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Dr. Freberg has been incredibly gracious in offering to share her insights with the Ashworth University student community and we are thrilled to have her as a member of our contributing bloggers’ network. Visit Laura’s great website and Laura’s Psychology Blog to learn more about her life and work. Thanks Dr. Freberg!
A study in the December 2007 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry examines the prevalence of psychotic symptoms and schizophrenia in nondemented 95-year-olds over a one-year period. A sample of 338 95-year-olds living in Göteborg, Sweden (individuals with dementia were excluded leaving 163 subjects for this study) received psychiatric and physical examinations as well as cognitive tests and interviews with close informants. The results indicated that the one-year prevalence of any psychotic symptom was 7.4% overall (hallucinations 6.7% and delusions 0.6% ). Four of the study participants met DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia (2.4%). No differences in cognitive functioning were found between individuals with psychotic symptoms and individuals without these symptoms. Individuals with hallucinations and paranoid ideation also had an increased frequency of paranoid personality traits. The authors concluded that there was evidence of a higher than expected prevalence of psychotic symptoms, paranoid ideation, and schizophrenia in the very old.
*A man who has lived a fascinating life, Dr. Romeo Vitelli spent fifteen years as a staff psychologist in Millbrook Correctional Centre, a maximum-security prison run by the Ontario government. In 2003, he successfully escaped prison and went into full-time private practice and currently also serves as a Disaster Management volunteer with the Red Cross. He is one of the web’s most respected and trusted sources in matters of psychology. We here in the Ashworth University community are honored to share with Dr. Vitelli’s gifts with our students and would like to express our gratitude to him. Visit Providentia to learn more about the life and work of Dr. Romeo Vitelli.
Even today, tuberculosis remains a fearsome disease with an uncertain outcome. How much more frightening must it have seemed in 1892 after an epidemic of tuberculosis struck the Rhode Island town of Exeter? Despite the fact that the deaths were limited to a single family, the possibility of it spreading seemed very real to the people of the region. Following the deaths of Mary Eliza Brown and her daughter, Mary Olive in 1883, the two surviving children seemed to be spared for a time. When Mercy Lena Brown suddenly died in January, 1892 and her brother Edwin began to sicken as well, the patriarch of the family, George T. Brown, became desperate for any solution to save his only surviving child. True treatment for tuberculosis would not be available for decades and all that he had to rely upon were the folk remedies that his neighbours suggested.
History does not record who first proposed exhuming the deceased members of the family and burning the heart of the relative that seemed most likely to be responsible for the deaths. The word “vampire” was never actually used in this case but the rural residents of the area had a longstanding tradition of burning the heart of those deemed to have died an “unnatural” death to cure unexplained illness. Since Mercy Brown was only recently deceased and her body was still well-preserved by the cold weather, she was judged to be the guilty party by virtue of the liquid blood that was still in her heart. Although the medical examiner in attendance, Dr. Harold Metcalf, insisted that there was nothing remarkable about Mercy’s condition, her heart was removed and burned on a nearby rock. The ashes were then saved and placed in water for her brother Edwin to drink (his reaction to this “remedy” is not recorded). Sadly, Edwin still died some time later although the epidemic ended with him. Local tradition still holds that Mercy’s exhumation and the disposal of her heart still “took care of the problem” and laid her spirit to rest.
Folklore surrounding vampires varies from region to region but there are still some common elements to be found in many cultures. While legends of undead creatures that feed on the living seem fantastic by modern standards, hysteria surrounding supposed vampire attacks can still occur today. (more…)
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