Sociological Research

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This question is more specific.  Please read the information in the text and visit the websites I provide below.   Again, feel free to search other sites to further your understanding of the topic.  To earn 10 points, you will need to answer all parts of this question and your original post must be before the weekend.

In Chapter two the author discusses The Zimbardo Stanford County Prison Experiment.  

Do you think Zimbardo’s experiment was ethical? Why or why not? Recall the history of torture and genocide, from thousands of years ago, to today with the ethnic cleansing that continues to take place in the Middle East,to the frequent terrorist events throughout the world or the "pick your own war"? What about police brutality, domestic violence, gang warfare.....or our earliest history of the Puritans torturing Quakers (Kai Erikson, 1966) simply because they were different...or the many other examples in the history of any Nation? 

Are all of the hundreds of millions of people represented in the instances above just evil, malicious, and/or mean? I might suggest that not all tortuous behavior is extreme or physical.

Or, is the behavior exhibited in the Zimbardo experiment, and the many other examples, human nature? .....or is it learned?....what about self preservation?

How much does power and control account for and justify the behavior above?

Finally, am I to conclude, then, that we are all capable of being malicious?  No?  Or do you simply define "malicious" more benevolently?    

Below are YouTube links discussing Zimbardo’s experiment and the updated  Milgram experiment.  And, there are many more Zimbardo videos to check out which will further explain his study. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndBnlj0bMFA&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jYx8nwjFQ

Update of Milgram’s experiment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w&feature=related

Again, please take the assignment seriously and answer all parts of the multifaceted question.