Sunday, November 14, 2010
Pretending
We briefuly talked about the Stanford Prison Experiment in class the other day. As some of the students had not heard about it, I knew what it was because we learned about it in Theater 3. It came into play when we started discussing the idea of "cognitive dissonance." This is when one believes something so strongly and completely in their mind that it becomes a reality for them. The reason this prison experiment was conducted at Stanford University was so study the psychology of pretending to be in a situation you're not really in. At least, that's how we looked at it in theater class. In the link provided, it seems as though the experiment was really to test the "goodness" of people when they are placed in an "evil" situation. This relates to The Crucible because as the accusations and rumors of witchcraft start flying, we see everyone in the town of Salem become accusatory and vicious. People start lying about the neighbors they have always held a grudge on, and basically condemning them to their deaths. The evil situation that has befallen the people of Salem brings out the demonic side of them. This is ironic because it is the demon that they are so strongly afraid of and avoiding.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hayley,
ReplyDeleteWhat a good connection! I think that it is also interesting to point out the motive behind the experiment and behind the Crucible. I don't know the whole story behind the experiment, but it seems wrong to me to throw people into an "evil" situation, and then see if they end up doing something good or bad. To me, the results of the experiment wouldn't be accurate because the behaviors of the people could completely change in another scenario. I also think that this is true with the people in Salem. I don't think that they are all secretly demonic, but due to the situation, they are all acting out in different ways.