post 5 Social Experiments & Theories

  Milgram's Shock Experiment at Yale University in 1961-1962 is a study of “obedience to authority”. Members of the general public play a role of a “teacher” with the task of shocks of increasing magnitude to student( Milgram’s confederate) every time he failed to answer the right answer, and the shock was not real. To everyone’s shock, 65% teachers went all the way to 450v.

  In Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment, students were assigned to be either guard or prisoners. The study had to be terminated after just 6 days because of the abuse carried out by the guards.

  Both of experiences show that when people are put in stressful conditions with intense social and authoritative pressure, they could behave in ways that go against their own ethics and morals.

  Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.

  In The Book Of Negroes, there are lots of examples of dehumanization. People that take charge or have a certain level of power, no matter white or black, fit into their roles very quickly and act in a way that go against their own ethics and morals. White people have a role of “master”, they own their slaves, and so they do whatever they want to black slaves even what they do could hurt black people very badly. Some black people have certain level of power compare to others. Under stress from buckra, they go against their own ethics and morals, help buckra to take control of their own people. In the other way, when black people accept their role, which is slave, they start acting more like a slave. And when buckra abuse black people but sometimes kind to them, some black people might generate Stockholm syndrome, which make them start to understand and even help buckra. In the book, Aminata wrote, “ Most of the time there was nobody on the plantations but fifty Negroes, watched by a Negro overseer and his two Negro assistant. There was not a toubab in sight, but still nobody tried to escape the island.” In Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment, lots of students actually acted like prisoners during the experience, after the experience, some of them even think that the guards are stronger and taller then prisoner when they are chosen. When Africans accept that they are slave, they start to think that they are less powerful and they do not have the ability to go against buckra.