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What Are The Similarities Between The Stanford Prison Experiment And Lord Of The Flies

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A Comparative Analysis of Lord of the Flies and the “Stanford Prison Experiment” Pertaining to Human Behavior In Lord of the Flies, William Golding tacitly references a deeper meaning within his novel: the idea that when in isolation, the hierarchies the boys build, along with the social norms that are formed from these hierarchies, aid in increasing savagery. This concept of human behavior can be compared similarly to key components exhibited in Philip Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” which ultimately aided in uncovering the notion that “good” individuals can be transformed into “bad” individuals through conformity established in social situations. Lord of the Flies, along with the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” share resemblances through …show more content…

Melissa Dittmann, an author for the American Psychological Association (APA), aimed to find the correlation between abuses at Abu Ghraib and conformity caused by social situations. She quoted Zimbardo, who claimed previously as an eye-witness for multiple U.S. soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib, “That line between good and evil is permeable...we all have the capacity for love and evil...It’s the situation that brings that out.” (Dittmann). This statement provides justification that savagery can be determined by situational forces, and humans have the capacity for both good and bad behaviors. Dittmann quotes Zimbardo once again, who claimed, “They semantically change their perception of victims of the evil act, and change the relationship of the aggressor to their aggression– so ‘killing’ or ‘hurting’ becomes the same as ‘helping,’ ” …show more content…

This information, found from research by the team, supports the idea of a strong correlation between social situations and conformity, explaining how people can change their attitudes, or even behaviors in order to conform to social norms. These conceptualizations formed by the group’s research on the topic of conformity similarly relate to the boys of Lord of the Flies, who readily conformed to what they believed was decorous behavior in their new society, which was given to them by their impression of individuals being of higher social status than them. In a separate study, two researchers from PLoS Biology discuss the topic of the nature of conformity, arguing that an individual’s willingness to follow authority is dependant on identification with the authority in question and a belief that the authority is correct, as well as that destructive behaviors can be caused by creativity. The pair argue, “This suggests that individuals’ willingness to follow authorities is conditional on identification with the authority in question and an associated belief that the authority is right.” (Haslam and

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523 Words | 3 Pages

There are uncanny similarities and differences between the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding's and the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Two of the main subjects from LOTF were civilization and savagery. When put into isolation, would the boys on the island be civilized or fall into the trap of savagery. In the SPE, Zimbardo wanted to find out how humans would perform in a prison-like environment. He put 24 male students in a prison simulation, role-playing as prisoners and guards.

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751 Words | 4 Pages

Neither one of the circumstances was ethical at any point and had been publicized by the media for its explicit type of interrogation methods as well as sadistic behavior. In particular, Phil Zimbardo has argued that the study shows that strong situational forces can override individual differences in personality and moral values. In Abu Ghraib, soldiers were inserted into the role of prison guards and began to sadistically torment prisoners there and at other detention sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the specific acts of humiliation were similar to those that transpired in the Stanford Prison Experiment, according to Zimbardo. This theory has been challenged by allegations by Seymour Hersh, in the New Yorker, that these soldiers were in fact acting under direct orders of their superiors as part of a top secret Pentagon intelligence gathering program authorized by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

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252 Words | 2 Pages

Lord of the Flies by William Golding has various similarities with the Stanford Prison Experiment. The british boys from LOTF were stranded on this island alone, secluded from the rest of society. The prisoners in this experiment were also secluded from civilization due to them being in this facility. Professor Zimbardo constructed this experiment not knowing how this could make serious mental damage to the volunteers. In LOTF, the boys were having an assembly and Ralph said “ We’ve got to have rules and obey them.

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The ¨Stanford Prison Experiment¨ was a breakdown of the morals and rules on how people would act toward one another due to their environment, rather than how they should. The study had created more questions than answers, specifically about the darkness and lack of moral standards that inhabits the human soul. It showed that methodical abuse and denial of human rights is nothing new in prison facilities. The novel Lord of the Flies shows how easily people become dangerous depending on their situation, and how easily humans become savages when there are no definite rules. Lord of the Flies and ¨The Stanford Prison Experiment¨ have many similarities in the way they both show the effects that occur when you lose all moral standards, and lack of rules.

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When structure disappears among civilized people, chaos arrives. In the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the boys find each other on the island and they try to set up a type of rule within the island and the boys. Much like how in the “Stanford Prison Experiment” by Sam McLeod, when the experiment starts, it is an organized and set up way. The article states “Guard were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners” (McLeod). In both the book and the article, the beginning was the time for them to start the way of how order was supposed to be.

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In 1963, a psychologist at Yale University took on an experiment that focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The experiment proved, in a high number of cases, that no matter an individual’s personal conscience, that individual will be obedient to a person of higher rank even in the scene of causing harm to another human being. In the novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding, presents the idea of obedience in human nature. Furthermore, by introducing the idea that obedience is a major point in human nature.

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In the book “Lord of the Flies,” Jack’s transformation from a normal choirboy to a very ruthless leader draws close similarities to the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Looking at Jack’s treatment of the other boys. It becomes clear how the experiment's findings concerning social roles and cruel treatment are in the book. Jack’s treatment of the other boys mirrors the inhuman behavior observed by the guards of the Stanford prison experiment. When Jack acquires leadership, he becomes very strict, using fear and intimidation to control his tribe.

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630 Words | 3 Pages

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies is about a group of young boys, aged around 6-12, that crash land on an uninhabited island, and without adults, they fail miserably. In E.L Epstein’s article “NOTES ON LORD OF THE FLIES” Golding reveals in his novel that the flaws in human nature lead to a flawed society; which is seen in society (Epstein par. 3). Lord of the Flies provides an example of how imperfections in human nature start to surface when people are in a groups. One imperfection is their tendency to do violent and demeaning things as a mob.

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Murder or Mercy: Morality in the Human Brain “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” - Michio Kaku When reading such stimulating novels such as Lord of the Flies, the psychological mysteries of the human mind are often the first thing you notice, be it the ability to justify killing another human being or just the need to build a society in order to maintain humanity. The psychological deterioration in both Golding’s fictitious novel, Lord of the Flies, and Zimbardo’s in depth psychological study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, are similar in the character archetypes that emerge in the stressful situation and the results of a particular ethical code gaining authority.

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Philosophers, authors, and intellectuals have long debated the distinctions between good and evil, ruthlessness and civilization, and the two sides of human nature within issues illustrating the complexity of human experience and the continued importance of these fundamental problems for navigation in modern reality. For instance, Lord of the Flies by William Golding follows a group of British schoolboys during wartime who crash onto an unknown island and try to create civilization and get rescued, only to end in a moral collapse. Similarly, the "Stanford Prison Experiment," run by Philip G. Zimbardo, investigates behavioral changes in a revolving prison-officer relationship that was stopped prematurely due to severe violence. Despite arguments

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1403 Words | 6 Pages

Human society has been long perceived as a mechanism to restrain humans from their natural inclinations towards evil and savagery. However, William Golding's novel the Lord of the Flies argues that despite society’s attempts to civilize and domesticate, human beings are inherently capable of committing evil and violent acts. Published in 1954, Golding used his experience in the Royal Navy as inspiration to write the novel based on World War 2. The Lord of the Flies follows a group of British Boys that are left stranded on a deserted island and their gradual descent into savagery despite the boys attempts to civilize. Golding backs this statement by showing the reader the effects of fear and how it inflicts itself on the boys.

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767 Words | 4 Pages

Thesis Statement: In Lord of the Flies William Golding throughout the book is trying to show you that society should recognize man is evil. Introduction Paragraph: In the book Lord of the Flies the author William Golding shows a group of boys losing their innocence throughout their life stuck on this inhabited island in the pacific ocean. These boys go from being quiet and shy to violent and dangerous young little boys. Golding uses the pigs, hunting, and the boys face painting to show their lose of innocence throughout the story. There 's no rules of any sort on this island these boys landed on they are free to do whatever they want whenever they want.

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429 Words | 2 Pages

The concept of the Lord of the Flies begins from the root of the world-- corruption. William Golding, the author of this famous, as well as infamous book, conveys a story about young boys set on an abandoned island to survive alone. These boys resemble the disappearance of order when civility situates itself in the wrong hands. This book supports Thomas Hobbes’ ideology of mankind being naturally "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" without appropriate order. Taken into the account of this ideology, Jahmal Lightfoot, a prison inmate jailed for robbery, quoted by the New York Times article, “testified that he had been singled out for a beating by officers who believed that he thought himself ‘tough’”.

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The absence of such norms can cause individuals to revert to a primal state, exposing the constraints of human nature in such situations. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the absence of these norms creates an environment in which "the rules are the only thing we've got" (Golding 99), and the boys are forced to confront the unfamiliar and navigate the challenges of survival on their own. Without the guidance of societal boundaries, the boy's behaviour becomes growing more unstable and evolves into a state of primal savagery. Golding's portrayal of the boys' descent into chaos and violence highlights the fragility of human nature in the absence of established norms. As the boys struggle to survive on the island, they become increasingly isolated and cut off from the outside world, leading to a breakdown in their moral and social values.

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1252 Words | 6 Pages

The Depravity of Man In Lord of the Flies, William Golding explores the nature of man, posing the question on whether man is intrinsically corrupt or, rather, does society corrupt the inborn goodness of man. Throughout the novel, Golding masterfully crafts a picture to answer this very question. By the end of his work, Golding’s beliefs are clear.

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