• In total there are 0 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 0 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am

Psychology of moral behavior

#41: Nov. - Dec. 2007 (Non-Fiction)
JulianTheApostate
Masters
Posts: 450
Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:28 am
18
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 41 times

Psychology of moral behavior

Unread post

The To what extent is moral behavior situational? thread is focusing on philosophical issues, which is fine. In this thread, let's discuss the psychological issues, which interest me more and which I found most thought-provoking when reading the book.

First, let me clarify what I mean by situational moral behavior. Most people would have different answers to the questions "Is it acceptable to attack someone who's minding their own business?" and "Is it acceptable to attack someone who's trying to kill you?" That's not what I'm talking about here. Instead, consider cases, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib, in which participants did stuff that they would previously have considered immoral, even when told the context.

What does it say about moral behavior when, over the course of a few days, actions like those performed by the SPE guards can emerge?
seeker
Float like a butterfly, post like a bee!
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:00 am
16

Unread post

JTA wrote:
What does it say about moral behavior when, over the course of a few days, actions like those performed by the SPE guards can emerge?
While I no longer ascribe to the "blank slate" paradigm, this book certainly dramatizes the power of our institutions and their resultant situations in eliciting extreme behavior. It would appear that aggression is just beneath the surface of civilized behavior, waiting for anonymity, or permission of authority, or even submersion in a group, to emerge. While I don't find this intuitively obvious, the evidence seems compelling. Is our culture's preoccupation with heroes and villains blinding us to the communal sources and solutions to social ills?
User avatar
Mr. P

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
Has Plan to Save Books During Fire
Posts: 3826
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:16 am
19
Location: NJ
Has thanked: 7 times
Been thanked: 137 times
Gender:
United States of America

Unread post

seeker wrote:..would appear that aggression is just beneath the surface of civilized behavior, waiting for anonymity, or permission of authority, or even submersion in a group, to emerge. While I don't find this intuitively obvious, the evidence seems compelling. Is our culture's preoccupation with heroes and villains blinding us to the communal sources and solutions to social ills?
Man...I find this intuitively obvious!! We are all capable of bad and good. Good wins mostly (and not consistantly throughout our history) because of a system/situation...that is civilization/moral codes we have developed!

Mr. P.
When you refuse to learn, you become a disease.
Post Reply

Return to “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil - by Philip Zimbardo”