Sharing Circle
After the due date/time for the individual response, return to the discussion board to
begin the Sharing Circle. You'll begin this by taking the time to carefully read and
consider each of your peers' Individual Responses. The specific questions and guidelines
for participating in the SC are listed below. The SC is an on-going discussion that will
continue from Friday night to Sunday night when the week is over. All SC posts must
follow these guidelines:
•
Create one SC post for each peer in your group
•
Will focus on the specific questions provided
•
Will be about 100 words in length
•
Will be a response that is thoughtful, respectful, but challenging
•
Upload the reaction posts by replying to each peer’s Individual Response
As a classroom courtesy and to work toward earning full credit for the Writing Circle,
take some time at the very end of the week to give short replies of acknowledgement and
thanks to your peers who have posted to your individual response and joined you in
conversation.
•
Read the Individual Responses of those in your peer group.
•
Reading others’ writing often leads us to ask questions. What point does your peer
make that raises a question for you? Address that question with your peer. As part of
your conversation, discuss possible answers to the question that may lead to a better
understanding of the topic of the assigned material.
•
Discuss briefly in your conversation one idea in your individual response that differs
from the ideas of your peer.
My Discussion:
Prejudice continues to affect human societies in different ways. It needs to be noted that
prejudice refers to the projections of one’s fears and deficiencies to other people. It is a
perspective that comes evident when one looks at the correlational themes which are
evident in the sources assigned, and the harm of having prejudicial dispositions. It is
evident how prejudices can be influential especially in the film on Maple Street (Twilight
Zone - The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street). The people who had known one another
for one another start a path of self-destruction, and the impact of Prisoner 819 in the
Zimbardo experiment.
Researchers have argued that most prejudices arise from subconscious attitudes, and the
projections from the Ample Street neighborhood is a confirmation of this paradigm. The
people use their inadequacies in explaining what was taking place, and seek scapegoats,
and this is mainly because of anxiety and uncertainty. In the Stanford experiment, there is
an interesting aspect which is evident in the prisoners, of people who have an
authoritarian person (Psychology: The Stanford Prison Experiment - BBC Documentary).
Such people are said to conform with rigidity, are committed to their leaders without any
questions, and have a disdain for the people considered as inferiors, in this case, the
guards and the prisoners and how they relate. It shows the impact of conflict theory in
which people try to maintain their status, possessions or privilege, which requires having
people to oppress and wade off any threats. These two sources latently make this point,
while looking at the harmful nature of prejudice in society if not properly checked.
Classmate One:
Perhaps it is the fictionality of the episode of “The Twilight Zone”, but to me the
differences are quite obvious between the episode and the prison experiment. When
looking at the Stanford Prison Experiment, you see what happens when the wrong people
get in power. What happened was that in a short amount of time, these people who got
RANDOMLY selected to be the guards went crazy with power. In “The Twilight Zone”,
we saw how an extremely un-natural and stressful event ended up turning a whole group
of people against each other, and ultimately solving nothing.
Getting into the long-term repercussions and changes for those in these events, we can
start by actually comparing the prison victims and the little boy from the street, as those
who were treated completely unfair for no reason. The belief systems for both groups of
people changed (guards and street people) once power and stress hit. Before these events,
these people were living normal lives. It’s really a fact of these people in power doing
what is best to keep power or to feel more powerful, because for some people, that is how
they like to live.
Ask questions:
Classmate Two:
Both the Stanford Prison Experiment and The Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters are
Due on Maple Street” deal with the effect that perceived authority has on seemingly good
and normal people. In the Stanford Prison experiment, the guards actively humiliated and
harassed the prisoners simply because they now felt that they had that power due to the
fact that they had been told that their job was to keep the prisoners in line. The guards
grew to believe themselves to be above the prisoners, even though the prisoners had done
no wrong, they were average every-day college students who had simply joined a study,
just as the guards were. This perceived power that the guards felt caused them to act in
ways towards their peers that they normally would not even consider to be acceptable.
The Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” showed a similar
problem. When the people of Maple Street grew fearful, they also grew suspicious of
their neighbors. A select few of the characters put themselves into an authoritative
position; Steve and Charlie took it upon themselves to lead the group and influence their
suspicions. The perceived power felt by the people of Maple Street due to their fear led
them to dismiss all propriety and humanity, thus leading to some unforgivable actions.
Charlie murdered a fellow neighbor simply for walking down the street in the dark
because his suspicion clouded his better judgement. The rest of the neighbors then
attacked Charlie, throwing rocks at him and into houses in the neighborhood. These are
all actions that were committed by average, nice, every-day people who would, on a
normal day, never have considered the thought to do any of those things. Both
experiments show that any perceived authority can cloud the judgement of any person,
good or bad.
Ask questions:
Classmate Three:
The BBC document and the Twilight zone episode are Both social experiments. Even
though made in the olden times, they both carry a deep belief. While the Twilight zone
episode wasn’t real the BBC document was an experiment that was done in Stanford
University. Both of them are related to human psychology and show how we act and
behave when we are out in a certain type of environment. The main belief system that
both the experiments carried were that human beings can’t always be positive no matter
how calm or nice they look on the outside. With modernization and civilization, we often
think that wilderness and insanity is something humans have already overcome but the
reality is that we have built an environment that doesn’t force us to go insane or
inhumane. If that very environment is taken out of our lives we’ll become just as wild as
the other animals out there.
In the Twilight zone episode, we see the people of Maple Street go through some
abnormal happenings and are concerned about what is going on. Apparently, they believe
that it’s an alien invasion which is an opinion of a teen kid living in maple
street. Listening to what the kid says, they believe that someone in their neighborhood
isn’t human at all. They then accuse each other and turn against their own neighbors who
were their friends. Later it is shown in the episode that it was the doing of some people
who were experimenting on the people of the maple street. The abnormal things that
happen there are a way of instigating a type of unease between people or creating an
uncomfortable environment among the people. Later in the episode a character shoots his
neighbor thinking that a monster is coming. This shows an extent to which the people are
ready to go for their own safety and lives. I think it all comes to Darwin’s theory
‘survival of the fittest”, I think it’s not just a phrase but a universal truth which all the
living beings follow naturally.
Similarly, in the experiment of prison done by a psychologist. He builds a prison in the
basement of the university and brings in some volunteers for participation. He then
divides some college students into two groups; Prisoners and The guards. The objective
of the experiment was to see how a normal person reacts to an unhealthy, violent
environment. During the experiment the participants are seen breaking down emotionally,
acting insane and trying to fight back until the guards turn even more violent. The fact
that all of them are college students who are given a role in the experiment and that the
prisoners haven’t committed any crime also that the guards aren’t real guards yet the
prisoners still feel defeated and the guards feel the need to act a certain inhuman way
shows our real nature. Here too the belief system they carry has a lot to do with how
they react to their environment. The people who have been appointed as guards have a
belief system that the other so caller prisoners are criminals and that It is right for the
guards to behave in a very violent way because that is what happens in real life. Also, the
prisoners have their belief systems that they are playing the role of a prisoner and that
they need to do whatever they are told to by the guards.
Both the experiments have repercussions for their participants. The participants lose their
sense of realization. They lost their connection with reality. In the episode A character
shot his neighbor, all the other people were accusing each other just because of some type
of unusual happenings, they didn’t even think that there must be something that might be
causing it. They lost their rationality and humanity to a point that they were ready to
harm and injure their own neighbor with whom they lived for so many years. IN the
Stanford prison experiment, the prisoners seemed to forget that it was an experiment and
that they could leave anytime they wanted. The guards didn’t seem to get bothered by
the truth that the so-called prisoners had done nothing wrong and that they didn’t deserve
to be treated that way. They suffered a lot mentally and not just physically during the
experiment.
I think the first main factor that affected both the participants in the experiment and the
characters in the twilight zone was the environment. The environment itself was very
confusing but so real that the people were forced to think in a particular way unless
someone was very aware with what was actually happening. The second factor is
definitely their own belief system and their mentality. In the episode the people looked at
everyone around them as aliens or monster and not as their fellow neighbors. Similarly,
in the experiment, The Prisoners looked at themselves as criminals and the fake guards as
real ones which is why they thought they had to do whatever they were told to do.
In conclusion, both the experiments have shown a bitter reality of humans in an alarming
way. Even though the experiments were definitely unethical and somewhat violent in
nature the conclusions show our reality and bring insight on the terms that we have been
live together for so many years.
Ask questions:
Purchase answer to see full
attachment