The above-titled documentary is the work of Alex Gibney and tries to relay connections between social psychology experiments and unethical behavior in general. To achieve this, the documentarian adopts a historical approach and incorporates the experimental social science work conducted in the 60s and 70s (Bio Mechanic, 2014). Gibney uses snapshots of modern crime scenes and elucidates the underlying social psychology by marrying the scenes with the above-mentioned experiments. Therefore, it is the works of Stanley Milgram, John Darley, Bibb Latane, and Dr. Philip Zimbardo that provide the basis of the documentarians’ cinematic inquisition.
According to Milgram’s experiments, the presence of authority is enough to cause ordinary people to lose both perspective and their sense of human decency. The experiments required participants to issue escalating amounts of electric shock as per the scientist’s instructions (Schlinger & Poling, 2013). Consistent with Milgram’s theories of obedience, most of the participants complied with the directive to escalate the intensity of the electric shock, thus confirming his above-mentioned hypothesis. Significantly, the experiments and findings are then married with a more recent incident that culminated in what amounts to sexual assault (Stanley, 2006). Here, someone impersonating a police officer called the manager of McDonald’s establishment and convinced her to strip search one of her female employees. In both cases, the participants and the manager seemingly acted against their own consciences to the extent of violating human decency and breaking the law under the influence of authority.
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The experiments conducted by Darley and Latane show that people are less inclined to act in circumstances where someone requires assistance and there are several people present capable of providing the appropriate assistance. Accordingly, their experiments provide contrasting responses among those in dangerous situations to underscore the presence of a herd mentality and the diffusion of responsibility (Bio Mechanic, 2014). Then, these experiments are married with the famous murder of Kitty Genovese and a fraternity hazing incident that also culminated in murder to underline the social psychology factors responsible. The final experiment simulated prison conditions and involved approximately 25 college students of middle-class backgrounds. The so-called Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Dr. Zimbardo to relay that under certain conditions, ordinary humans are capable of both sadism and tyranny when in positions of power and authority (Bio Mechanic, 2014). Zimbardo’s experiment is combined with the media reports of prisoner abuses in Abu Ghraib.
One of my reactions to the documentary is the significance of social psychology in predicting human behavior. Both the experiments and associated criminal incidents involve ordinary people and the presence of power and authority. Through the documentarian’s analysis of power and authority relations, it is clear that social psychology provides justifications for some bizarre behavior. Obviously, social psychology states that humans are vulnerable in certain circumstances to similarly inexplicable levels of behavior under appropriate manipulation.
In the documentary, it is evident that only awareness of these psychological vulnerabilities can counteract their destructive and potentially lethal results. Furthermore, from the documentary and class lessons on human behavior, I have become better able to predict human behavior and will use it as an educative and consciousness-raising tool. This documentary provides a comprehensive and systematic approach to the study of human behavior and exposes vulnerabilities in power and authority relations.
In conclusion, I would strongly recommend this work to anyone with an interest in understanding human behavior. It provides information that can form the basis of a more detailed academic inquiry and also provides insights that cater to specific psychological interests.
References
Bio Mechanic. (2014, October 26). The Human Behavior Experiments . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVpV73wSyG8&t=188s .
Schlinger, H. D. J., & Poling, A. (2013). Introduction to Scientific Psychology . New York, NY: Springer.
Stanley, A. (2006, June 1). 'The Human Behavior Experiments': What Can Be Done in the Name of Obedience. The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/arts/television/01huma.html .
