Angela Martin

Psychology-1010-023
March 28, 2016

Are We Angels or Demons?

After watching a film, The Power of the situation, I began to question even my
own actions. This film pointed out different behaviors of people put into situations they
had never been exposed to. I was very suprised by the dramatic changes that had occered.
The film shows several experiments in which they assigned people to different roles and
recorded the behavior. The results were quite shocking to many people including the
researchers.
In one of the experiments, they took the subject and told them to read different
words or sentences to the "learner" and if they diddn't learn/remember the sequence of the
words then the subject was to shock the learner. As I watched the subject go higher on the
amount of volts they thought they were putting into the leaner raise higher and higher, I
thought to myself " stop, increasing it won't make them learn better". I then wondered
what I would do if I was put into the situation and my answer scared me. I realised that I
too would shock the learner, the thought of me intentionally harming/bringing pain to
someone else made me cringe. I would like to say that I wouldn't go higher than about
100 volts, but the even scarier thing is that I don't know if that is really true because I was
never put into the situation.
Another experiment intoduced in the film was an experiment in which the
partisipants were either assigned to be a prisoner or a prison guard. The partisipants didn't
just play their role, they became their role. The prison guards became vile and the
prisoners became rebellious or submisive. As I watched this change I wondered how can
someone so inocent become this nightmare? In the end of the experiment a prisoner was
talking to a guard and telling him that he knows he was a nice guy but he hates him for

what he did when he was playing the gurad role. The guard then asked the prisoner what
he would do if he was in that situation. The guard paused and said "I don't know". Even
the prisoner that was bullied didn't know if he would have done the exact same as the
guard if he was in the guards shoes.
I was truly scared to see this change and I began to question what we as humans
are capable of. If there was a major challenge to occur in the world, would we find a
solution or would we doom ourselves to failure? Would it be enough to change our
morals or would it be too severe and make us self destruct? The scariest thing is that I
honestly don't know.
The final experiment that I found interesting is when the experimenters took flight
students, tested their sight, then tested it again when they were treated as "real pilots" or
as a student. The students that were treated as real pilots actually had an improved score
on their vision tests, whereas the other students had no improvement. If a situation has
the power to improve sight, then what else could it do?
I begin to wonder what would happen to children in different situations. If there
was a child growing up being told that they were amazing, talented, beautiful; all these
positive things would they accel in many, if not all, aspects on life compaired to a child
that's not. Can this go the other way around? If a child is told that they are a nuisance,
have problems, are stupid, or a lot more severe examples that brakes my heat to think
about; would this cause the child to fall behind? If it was severe enough, would the child
go as far as to self loath?
The video opened my eyes to see what humans can become in minutes. How thay
can change based on the roles they are given. And most of all, it has opened my eyes to
what we are capable of, good or bad, right or wrong. It makes me wonder if we really
know who we are or what we are capable of.

Works Sighted
The Power of the Situation, Philip Zimbardo. Discovering Psychology 2001. web, video.
28, March 2016.