Today I watched a fantastic German movie – ‘Das Experiment’, which is based on the famous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. It was a simulation (or role-play), where a group of volunteers were assigned the roles of prisoners and guards – and the experimenters wanted to observe how much the assigned roles influence the behavior of the individuals.
The answer, as it disturbingly turned out – was too much, so that the volunteers almost completely took on the roles as real as the experiment progressed. While on the first day most volunteers treated the simulation with humor and detachment, over the next few days their behavior seemed to personify the roles that they were assigned. Some of the ‘guards’ turned abusive, sadistic – and the ‘prisoners’ showed signs of extreme depression and stress. The situation worsened to the extent that the experiment had to be stopped midway.
Das experiment is loosely based on the same research – and it does a brutally convincing job of portraying the simulation. It makes you wonder about human nature – and how much we are really the product of our environment. Based on the conclusion of the experiment, the answer would be – almost entirely.
The movie made me wonder about the thin line separating the roles that we are assigned by society, and our real selves. To take that statement to its logical extension – it makes me wonder if we have a ‘real self’ at all. If something so explicit as an experiment or game can change people’s behavior in a few days – obviously a long-standing role, designation, stereotyping can have the same effect. This also explains how so many apparently normal people become evil instruments of the Nazi regime during the second world war.
May be we shouldn’t identify ourselves so much with our roles – and have a bit more detachment in the way we perform those? Ancient Indian philosophy told us much the same thing, about the illusory nature of our societal roles, and the value of detachment. It’s amazing how different disciplines – philosophy, psychology, science etc. has a way of converging to the same truth.
1 comment:
not seen this movie or read it before but can see why the conclusion of the experiment is so true. the environmental conditioning aspect on people is shockingly high that individual aspects to start with almost disappear- we see it at jobs or in groups all the time. if at all any of the prisoner role players somehow retained his senses and escaped the conversion, he would still not escape the massive nervous energy of his fellow inmates wondering whats wrong with him and fall in place soon.
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