The Nature of Evil: Classic Psychology Experiments & Inhumanity
Through videos and articles, you will explore various stances and rationales about how people can be so inhumane to one another in life and in literature, such as in Night, a memoir, and in To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel. The reading and research tables will count as a formative grade, and a long, well-developed paragraph answer to a choice of questions (below) will count as a summative grade.
Day One & Day Two (Tu, 2/15 & W, 2/16) * Log in to GCPS portal, G Workspace, Google Classroom, and Media Center page * Join and participate in Nearpod. * Watch videos on famous psychology experiments by Milgram & Zimbardo related to human obedience and dehumanization and answer anticipation questions. * Set up for research by choosing one of six question options. In Classroom, launch a copy of "Good and Evil Research & Question Prep." * Open a copy of the Doc with Sources A, B, & C from here or in Google Classroom. Here are the three sources within the Doc: Source A: "What Makes Good People Do Bad Things?" Source B: "Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38 Transcript of Video" Source C: "Do Good People Turn Evil?" * Starting as a whole class to practice how to do the work, we will begin reading Source A: "What Makes Good People Do Bad Things?" in chunks, choosing and rewriting sentences as directed and making comments on the Good and Evil Research Google Doc with the source as indicated.
Day Three (Tu, 2/22) * Log in to GCPS Portal, G Workspace, Google Classroom, & Media Center page. * Open Sources A, B, & C Doc and scroll to Source B: "Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38 Transcript of Video." While the class watches the video, read along to find your favorite sentences in the transcript so that you know what you want to add to the Good and Evil Research Doc and complete parts two and three of the research table. * Scroll to Source C "Do Good People Turn Evil?" and begin working on it: Read, copy and paste best sentences/ passages and complete parts two and three of this research table. * Complete the Question Prep part of the "Good & Evil Research Doc & Prewriting." You'll find it after the source tables:
Questions for Summative Writing
1: Does EVIL exist, or do people just do bad things? Explain.
2: When and why is it sometimes better for people to conform to group behavior rather than to act on their own individual values?
3: If people are following orders, should they be held responsible for their decisions and actions? Why or why not?
4: In The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank wrote, "It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." Why do you agree or disagree with her opinion? 5: Do you feel that the passage of time or changes in society since the Milgram and Stanford experiments and the Holocaust have made situational evil more or less likely? What makes you think so? 6: Do you believe that the Milgram & Zimbardo experiments should have ever been done? Why or why not?