Can someone explain why is SPE not relevant to Abu Ghraib? While you can argue the experiment was flawed, I am not sure its results are.
I am asking myself, if all the outrage about the SPE (and also Milgram) experiments being unethical (or flawed) isn't really about something that we don't want to really know about human nature.
You shouldn't put the SPE and Milgram experiments in the same basket. His experiments involved hundreds of participants from different demographics (mostly males though) and the conclusions he drew were backed up by his data. The setup he used is today deemed by most as unethical, but similar studies have reached the same conclusions.
A little known fact is that Milgram found, when the studied persons were free to set the voltage to administer, none of them increased it. His conclusion were that most people are not sadists and do not enjoy hurting others.
I have the book Obedience from Milgram at home, although I just skimmed through it. I think the situation is similar, Zimbardo would probably do more experiments as well weren't the first result so horrific.
What I am a bit worried of is that we are not able to replicate (because of the ethical problems), in one way or another, results of these studies. How can future generations become educated about these problems? Especially if we cast doubt over their results. Are our descendants doomed to figure out these things the hard way?
SPE is tainted and so we should be very careful when drawing conclusions from it. This is true even if, although tainted, its conclusions are correct.
Things like Abu Ghraib are really severe. They don't just apply to "terrorists"[1] in military detention. See 'WinterBourne View'. This was a hospital[3] for long term care for people with learning disability. Residents were the victims of horrible treatment from people who were supposed to care for them. See also the poor care provided by some staff at West Staffs hospital.
Since our aim is to stop and reduce incidents of abuse we need good quality research to make sure that we're not making things worse.
[3] Cultural note: It was a private hospital, but most of the people there would have had their care paid for by the state. This happens quite a lot in mental health treatment - most eating disorder in-patient beds will be private; most medium and high secure "forensic" beds will be private.
> Zimbardo played a key role in encouraging his "guards" to behave in tyrannical fashion.
How do we know that the Abu Ghraib guards weren't told to be tyrannical by the CIA or other management figures? Noone was really blaming the guards themselves for causing it to happen.
We know they were. MPE doesn't confirm the belief that cruelty spontaneously forms in previously uncruel people when they are put in charge of others - but does it claim to? If that were true, every parent would be an abuser.
What it does support is that if you put people in charge of other people, and only punish the people in charge for lapses in order, and not for cruelty, then a large percentage of them will become cruel to prevent lapses in order.
In this context flawed and unethical mean different things. Flawed means that we cannot trust the results to be accurate and unethical means that we should not try the experiment again to test the accuracy of those results.
I am asking myself, if all the outrage about the SPE (and also Milgram) experiments being unethical (or flawed) isn't really about something that we don't want to really know about human nature.