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A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison

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... In recent years, hundreds of Italian prison officers have been accused of violent behavior or even torture toward incarcerated persons (ANTIGONE, 2024). More than 50 years after the Stanford prison experiment, many prison systems still reflect its findings, which suggest that violence and illness in prisons are rooted in their culture, management and policies (Haney et al., 1973;Specter, 2006). In this challenging context, the current research indicates that a prosocial shift in the social norms of prison officer culture could be a significant step toward resolving the critical issues of police violence and mental illness in prisons worldwide. ...
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Purpose-Prison officers face severe work-related stressors stemming from their interactions with detained people and the professional attitudes they enact, both of which are shaped by the prison culture's social norms. However, research neglected to investigate the role of prison social norms on officers' behaviors and well-being. This study aims to test whether promoting prisoner-supportive norms can improve officers' relationships with and attitudes toward detained people, in turn promoting their professional and psychological well-being. Design/methodology/approach-The study was conducted on 1,080 Italian prison officers and adopted a mixed correlational-experimental approach. The first correlational part of the study tested the hypothesized processes linking social norms to officers' well-being. The second part of the study adopted a two-level between-subject experimental design to manipulate supportive vs. punitive norms toward detained people using a priming procedure. Findings-The correlational results indicated that supportive norms were associated with higher supportive attitudes and emotional closeness with detained people, in turn sustaining officers' well-being. However, emotional closeness with incarcerated people also contributed to higher burnout. The experimental results confirmed that priming prisoner-supportive norms increased officers' supportive behavioral intentions toward detained people, in turn predicting greater anticipated psychological and professional well-being. Originality/value-The research provides correlation and experimental evidence of how prosocial norms can influence officers' well-being by shaping their attitudes and relationships with prisoners, offering practical implications for interventions in prisons and contributing to improving correctional environments and officers' mental health.
... Zimbardo reported extremely harsh treatment by those assigned to be 'guards' upon those assigned as 'prisoners', said to be so bad that the study had to be abandoned early. Zimbardo and colleagues said this was despite 'prisoners' and 'prison guards' being designated such roles from an initially equal status group of participants recruited for the study (Haney et al., 1973;Zimbardo and White, 1972). Other studies around the same time also reported finding evidence that once participants were 'deindividuated' within the presence of a large crowd, they were more inclined to attack people (Mullen, 1986) and encourage suicidal people to jump to their deaths (Mann, 1981). ...
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This article examines different theoretical explanations for rioting and crowd violence drawing on psychological, sociological and political perspectives. Varied ideas and research that have sought to better understand why people are motivated to riot are discussed whilst considering the history of past riots. The role of the law and in particular, police practices in tackling, and in many cases exacerbating crowd violence are also explored with a critical eye on the latest police science research. Both individual psychological motivations and deeper intersectional social inequalities are drawn together in this piece to comprehensively account for the reasons why people choose to riot. Alongside considering Willmott’s typology for differentiating rioters, recommendations are made for police practitioners and state authorities tasked with de-escalating the impact of riots when they occur. The efficacy of recommendations and theoretical explanations are considered directly in relation to the August 2011 and August 2024 English riots.
... With mounting evidence of their subtle confounding effects across the spectrum of experimental psychology, nagging questions have arisen about the validity of much highly influential experimental research (Elms, 1975). Orne's later critical examination drew attention to possible cues in some of the most famous and foundational experiments in social psychology, such as Zimbardo's prison experiment (Haney et al., 1973) and Milgram's work on obedience (Orne, 1962). Orne argued that the findings from these studies might be attributable to participants merely playing roles they believed were expected of them rather than reflections of other causal mechanisms. ...
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Demand characteristics refer to cues that can inform participants in experiments about the hypothesis and influence their behavior. They lead researchers to erroneously infer non-existing effects, undermining the experimental integrity of empirical studies. Despite a widespread acknowledgment of their confounding influence in experimental psychology, experiments involving humans and computers to a lesser extent consider effects of demand characteristics, as computerized protocols are thought to be immune to some experimenter biases. Furthermore, demand characteristics are considered to mainly effect subjective measures. As a result, demand characteristics often remain uncontrolled in studies involving computers, and in particular for objective measures such as performance. In this paper, we present two experiments that underline the importance of demand characteristics in human–computer interaction experiments. In a text-entry study, we made participants believe they were evaluating a research-based keyboard. This belief led to increased performance and self-reported user experience. In a second study, we conducted a thought experiment on the illusion of body ownership in virtual reality, where the experimental design indicated the study hypothesis. We found hypothesis-compliant responses from participants, even when they did not experience the illusion. We conclude that demand characteristics pose a significant challenge to the interpretation and validity of human–computer experiments, even when they are fully automated. We discuss the implications and offer guidelines to mitigate effects of demand characteristics.
... These links between violence, conformism and standardisation of behaviour are at the heart of the famous experiments conducted by Milgram and Zimbardo, which, despite their questionable scientific character, had a lasting influence. In these studies, the power of apparatuses takes precedence over individual psychology (Milgram 1974;Haney et al. 1973). From this perspective, it is hardly surprising that Michel Foucault (1995) criticises the violence of disciplinary power in the 1970s. ...
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The main contention of this article is that, since the 20th century, violence has gradually turned into a purely technological concept. This great change amounts to a paradigm shift which can be traced back to Johan Galtung’s seminal article “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” (1969). First, I show why the traditional view of violence revolving around the notions of force, intent and harm has been thrown into crisis by the technological evolution of the Western world. Second, I indicate how Galtung’s thorough redefinition of violence as “the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual” proves more compatible to technological societies. Finally, I suggest that this new definition of violence has become ever more appealing today in the age of artificial intelligence.
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The philosophical template of eudaimonia is of ancient Greek heritage and has to do with completeness, fulfillment, and excellence; a non-reductionistic conceptualization of the perfect life that can be summarized as “a complete state of being and doing well” (Sumner, Welfare, happiness, and ethics. Clarendon Press, 1996, p. 69). Many theories of philosophical eudaimonism exist, but the Aristotelian version is the most celebrated. He defined eudaimonia normatively, as rational activity in accordance with virtue. This idea has been described as “man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential-nature” (MacIntyre, After virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, p. 52). The Aristotelian notion of human nature is not easily translated to modern science, but the concept of organismic living might be a good place to start. An important element in organismic thinking is that all living organisms have an inborn tendency to activate and regulate their behavior toward some goal—to actualize their nature as autonomous, self-organizing systems. Organismic living is also highly interactionist, with sophisticated collaborations occurring within and between units. Humanistic and clinical psychologists in the mid-twentieth century were inspired by the notion of organismic living and used the concept to develop theories of self-actualization and fully functioning individuals. These theories were not explicitly described as eudaimonic, but they stimulated what we may label the first generation of eudaimonic wellbeing (EWB) theories in psychology. The most influential among the early EWB theories were developed by Waterman, Ryff, and Deci and Ryan. Waterman’s theory of personal expressiveness is inspired by humanistic psychology and the philosopher David Norton and his ethical individualism. Norton’s controversial interpretation of eudaimonism suggests that we all have a moral responsibility to discover “the daimon” within ourselves and to live in accordance with it. Waterman also follows Norton in identifying eudaimonia as the feeling that accompanies efforts of self-realization and the development of one’s true potential. These feelings are referred to by Waterman as expressive and are contrasted with hedonic enjoyment. The idea that eudaimonia can be defined as a feeling is questioned. Ryff’s psychological wellbeing theory (PWB) comprises six dimensions: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. The theory is often taken to be eudaimonic, but only personal growth and purpose in life are explicitly identified as carriers of eudaimonic meaning. The chapter criticizes Ryff’s theory for being underspecified and for downplaying the importance of affective and evaluative indicators of wellbeing. Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory (SDT) suggests that the fulfillment of our basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relations will lead to increased wellbeing. According to SDT, eudaimonia is intimately linked with the concept of being fully functioning. However, the concept of full functioning appears idealized and difficult to study empirically. Moreover, it is unclear whether SDT considers psychological need fulfillment to be a kind of wellbeing or a predictor of wellbeing. Theories of EWB, other than those of Waterman, Ryff, and Deci and Ryan, offer a plethora of eudaimonic dimensions and indicators, but two broad and overarching dimensions have been identified: (1) growth/self-realization/self-actualization/development of potentials/full functioning/maturity and (2) meaning/purpose/long-term perspective/caring. The concept of personal growth is historically rooted in the idea Germans refer to as “Bildung,” a personal transformation enabled through certain experiences that includes the formation of intellectual, personal, and moral capacities. Meaning or purpose in life cannot be directly related to Aristotelian eudaimonism but is relevant for EWB as a means of fulfilling one’s values. For example, Viktor Frankl’s notion of a “will to meaning” is a kind of self-transcendence that seems compatible with the eudaimonic idea of fulfillment. Many theories of EWB have been proposed, but little conceptual agreement has been reached. One reason is that concepts typically involved in eudaimonic models are difficult to test empirically. Several popular approaches are grounded in an idealized, a priori conceptualization of eudaimonia on the one hand and a set of self-report scales with unclear relations to the concepts on the other. Thus, the empirical part of eudaimonic research does not speak well with the theoretical part. The combination of rampant fauna of untestable concepts and a cottage industry of theory-drained scale production makes it unlikely that a conceptual consensus about eudaimonic wellbeing will be reached anytime soon.
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The current narrative review aimed to evaluate the effects and role of social media in covid-19 pandemic. The examinations show that web-based media has been utilized to share perspectives, medical care, and social distancing during the Covid-19 emergency. However, social media networks have also been used in spreading bogus information to the general public during the Covid-19 pandemic. Along these lines, utilizing web-based media can be an important method for experts and governments to forestall the spread of this virus and even incomparable future emergence. The paper has contributed in many aspects like offering opportunity and remediation on the negative effects of social media during covid-19 such as the spread of misinformation to the general public. In addition, enhancement of public health practitioners’ reliance on social media as a tool for appropriate information dissemination as well as assists media personnel in understanding the gravity of the situation and the barriers to effective communication of public health messages.
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When an organization has a learning orientation, operators are attracted to problems-a new learning experience. When the primary orientation is performance-based, operators become inclined to avoid problems, thus protecting themselves from criticism and failure. The combination of learning and performance orientation drives the organization to increase operators' capabilities. They become better equipped to enter liminal states, if not create structure in such circumstances. The result is a sense of agency in operators and enhanced organization performance. Introduction:
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Tarih Eğitimi Bağlamında Mitolojiye Genel Bir Bakış Sefa YILDIRIM Öğretmen Eğitiminde Sosyal Sorumluluk Kazandırmada Bir Fırsat: Topluma Hizmet Uygulamaları Dersi Fundanur YANIK Selçuk İLGAZ Turizm Pazarlamasında Yapay Zekâ İnovasyonu Yasemin ASİLTÜRK OKUTAN Organomineral Gübreler Tülay DİZİKISA Erzurum’da Duvar Yazısı Kültürü ve Duvar Yazıları: Sosyal, Kültürel ve Politik İfadelerin İncelenmesi Abdulhan TAŞBAŞI Oyun Dağarcığı Geliştirme Kaynak ve Yöntemleri Kübra KANDEMİR Bitlis Çarşı Yangını ve Afet Yönetimi (16 Temmuz 1904) Esin ALTUN Avrupa’daki Türk Boylarının Sanat Eserlerinde Görülen Erkek Figürünün Biçimsel ve İkonografik Özellikleri Yasemin TEPE Eleşkirt’te Önemli Bir Eskiçağ Merkezi: Gülşah Kalesi Muhammed Burak YILDIRIM Osmanlı Kadın Dergilerinden Mürüvvet’te Kadın Kimliği Filiz GÜNDEREN Edmund Husserl ve Felsefesinde Gelişen Kavramlar Fatıma KOÇ Erzurum Âşıklık Geleneğinde Son İcra Mekânları Abdulhan TAŞBAŞI Tarih Eğitimi ve Tarih Bilinci Bağlamında: Empati, Sempati, Özdeşleşme, Alturism, Ego, Bilinç ve Zihin Kavramlarına Genel Bir Bakış Sefa YILDIRIM Eğitim Felsefesi ve Akımları Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme Fatıma KOÇ
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