Allen Stanford

“‘Our leverage was the threat of death’” Todd Ashker, an inmate at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison, responds to writer for New York Magazine, Benjamin Wallace-Wells. In 2013, Asher, along with about 30,000 other people held a hunger-strike. The California hunger-strike led by Ashker is better explained by the administrative-control theory because of a sense of injustice and the fact that no prison or prison system is ungovernable. According to Bert Useem, a professor of Sociology in…

Shepard Fairey has been subtly demanding obedience for decades. Unconscious stares meet the face of his ubiquitous image of the late professional wrestler Andre the Giant in the streets of nearly every major city worldwide. Stickered haphazardly onto street signs, plastered to overpasses and billboards, the graphic, propaganda-esque portrait of Andre stares through dark black eyes, silently commanding “OBEY.” Or is the command to dis-obey? Such are the sardonic messages behind much of street…

Different Countries, Same Crimes “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions” (Primo Levi). There are common people every day who experiment; however, experiments turn evil when they prove genocidal to races. Throughout history, there have been events which most would like to change or forget; likewise, there are events which are repeated, even though the event…

Submission to Authority The life of every human being starts in the womb of his mother. Ever since his birth, he is being fed and nourished to play a role in society. The individual receives knowledge for the mind, food and water for the body, and emotion for the heart. Growing up, we have been programmed to follow authority. We can relate this to the relationship that exists between a child and a mother. Naturally, the child obeys the orders of the mother because he respects her right…

Stanley Milgram had a goal to make a lasting impact in the field of psychology. So, he devised an experiment to understand why Nazi’s in the Holocaust followed Hitler. It is an understandable ambition because we must understand why Nazis followed and performed such horrific acts to be able to insure that it never happens again. Milgram’s experiment took place on February 1st, 1965 in an experiment titled Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority. His experiment is justified…

vocabulary. I have a strong hold on subject which basically means I research a lot of background information to write my essays backed by credible sources. This can be observed in “At the Whim of Authority” in the quote, “This can be supported by the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Dr. Phillip G. Zimbardo. In the experiment he had volunteers and split them into two groups which consisted of guards and prisoners. The prisoners were left under the control of the guards without any…

always the answer; however, ruling out obeying as a whole is counterproductive. In “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”, Erich Fromm claims people fear authority, yet wish to climb the ladder to reach maximum power. In contrast, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo depicts individuals who are in charge of others, however, hate the ease in which individuals shove their morals aside. Christopher Shea, in “Why Power Corrupts”, states that power can express…

psychological experiment to determine how average members of society with no history of psychological problems, criminal histories or substance misuse issues would react to the adoption of role of either prison guard or prisoner. The experiment took place in Stanford University, California, USA which had been converted, for all intents and purposes into what appeared to be a functioning prison. The results of the experiment were more dramatic than even Zimbardo could have predicted. Though it…

The movie ‘Dead Poets Society’ demonstrates a great deal of examples on social influence such as conformity within a group and obedience to authority. Milgram’s experiment can be followed throughout the movie. The school traditions dictate a high level of obedience with its rules such as dress code, repetitions after the teacher, and other events which take place on a daily basis. These types of obedience and conformity can lessen the courage to speak up for what one believes in and can prevent…

The most extreme and infamous example of this being the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which a group assigned to be guards were given the task to not let the prisoners escape. The guards performed their task to an incredible degree. People, when given a job, want to be successful, often for a variety of reasons…