Stanford: Mind Control in Theory and Practice

When Zimbardo was teaching a course on Mind Control, he had an assignment where he asked his students to apply what they had learned to get blacks and women to start smoking. Almost all students came back with detailed explanations, some used their personal experiences, others interviewed black friends for their input, etc. Just to make sure, he told the students that he’d sent their reports to a friend at Philip Morris and they were very interested in hiring a few students over the summer; it’d only be an internship, but who would be interested? Almost everyone’s hand shot up.

Zimbardo was livid. He was going to outright cancel the course until someone talked him out of it. Here were students who had spent months learning the techniques of mind control, with special emphasis on the evils of smoking, with the goal of being able to resist its power, and none of it had any effect! One simple assignment and kids were lining up to kill people.

posted February 14, 2005 12:20 AM (Education) (1 comments) #