Psychology Film Workshop

A psychology film workshop took place this week, where Lower and Upper Sixth pupils addressed the question ‘why and how can good people be influenced to do bad things?’ A core area of the A Level specification requires pupils to consider social factors which might enhance extreme, uncharacteristic, behaviours and so we watched the Stanford Prison Experiment. Based on the original social experiment conducted by the psychologist, Professor Zimbardo, we watched and diagnosed footage of volunteer participants in a mock prison environment. We observed dramatic shifts in the participants’ behaviour from ‘normal’ to clear adoption of new identities resulting in unethical, sadistic behaviour. Pupils were encouraged to consider the flaws of this research, alternative explanations and offer suggestions of how the research hypotheses could be addressed without the need to use such an unethical method. This was a fantastic opportunity for psychology pupils to apply their knowledge, and for the Upper Sixth to share their more advanced knowledge of the subject with their Lower Sixth peers!

Dr Rachel Avery.