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. You will practice your reading of informational texts, finding helpful facts from them, and creating notes to use as ammunition in a graded discussion on one of six broad questions to talk about your some of your classmates. Questions will be randomly assigned.
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 on the Psych on Evil: Research & Notes Doc with the source as indicated.
Questions for Discussion Prep (random assignment from roster) 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?