In the 1960's, social psychologist Stanley Milgram shocked the world when he created experiments in which otherwise decent people would do the unthinkable: administer painful and dangerous punishment to others, provided a few conditions, like anonymity and unaccountability, were met. The frightening conclusion, now popularly known as the power of the situation, was that given the right situation, people could be made to do anything, despite what they may think about themselves and their own moral character.
Other experiments, like the infamous Stanford prison experiment, have produced similarly disturbing results, and have been replicated in shocking real-life situations, like the Abu Gharib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. I'll be posting more about that later.
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