The Reckoning Overview

   The Final Reckoning of the Stanford Prison Saga is a series of articles on the most audacious theater in social science history. Step-by-step, leaving no stone unturned, what truly happened way back in 1971 is revealed. And it was nothing like we were led to believe. In this overview, you will find a recap …

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The Reckoning part 10: The Narratological Method

   I relied on narratological principles to review the Stanford Prison Saga. Narratology is the study of stories with a focus on persuasive elements that convey meaning. Although the art of how narrators communicate valuable lessons on behavior goes back to Aristotle and Plato — what doesn’t in Western thinking — the discipline to systematically …

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The Reckoning part 9: Finishing off the response

   The journey is not yet over. There are two remaining issues in Zimbardo’s response that are indirectly related to the simulation. Early publications appeared outside peer-reviewed journals to avoid rejection, and a British research team failed to replicate the simulation. To finish the job I started, I forced myself to dig my teeth into …

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The Reckoning part 8: Cleansing the Pandemonium

   We embarked on a journey to get to the bottom of one of psychology’s most notorious experiments. The winding road we traveled through a murky narrative landscape revealed that the Stanford psychologists fooled a susceptible audience for decades and tricked the unwary into believing fantasy was fact. Till now, the truth was blurry, the …

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The Reckoning part 7: Making sense of the shambles

   In 2019, Noam Cohen reached Zimbardo by email on Le Texier’s Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo did not know American Psychologist had accepted the paper. He was surprised the article got published in light of the defense of his work he wrote the year before. Nevertheless, rather than trumpet his typifying defense, Zimbardo …

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The Reckoning part 6: The last judgment

   The researchers crafted a compelling allegory. Three storylines — guards spiraling out of control, prisoners suffering, and psychologists losing themselves in their role — gradually became entangled. The storylines propelled the plot to a climax confrontation between two lovers resulting in the premature termination of the experiment and the return of relieved boys to …

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The Reckoning Part 5: An Orchestrated Apotheose

   In The Aftermath of The Lifespan of a Lie, I painted a picture of the recent revelations aimed at toppling a science travesty without success. Psychology’s indifferent reaction to the damaging revelations that the Stanford Prison Experiment is fraudulent set me on an endeavor to review the composed piece of art using narratological principles. …

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The Reckoning Part 4: Douglas Korpi on trial

   In The Aftermath of The Lifespan of a Lie, I painted a picture of the recent revelations aimed at toppling a science travesty without success. Psychology’s indifferent reaction to the damaging revelations that the Stanford Prison Experiment is fraudulent set me on an endeavor to review the composed piece of art using narratological principles. …

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The Reckoning Part 3: John Mark’s Insubordination

   In The Aftermath of The Lifespan of a Lie, I painted a picture of the recent revelations aimed at toppling a science travesty without success. Seeing psychology’s indifferent reaction to the detrimental revelations set me on an endeavor to review the composed piece of art using narratological principles. In David Eshleman’s deepfake, we went …

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The Reckoning Part 2: Eshleman’s Deepfake

   In part 1 — The Aftermath of The Lifespan of a Lie — I outlined what happened after Ben Blum and Thibault Le Texier tried to topple a science travesty without success. After Zimbardo wrote a response to the criticism, the flood of fulminations quickly died out. Despite revealing the Stanford Prison Experiment is …

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The Reckoning Part 1: Aftermath of The Lifespan of a Lie

   Some years ago, two bold men — Ben Blum here on Medium and Thibault Le Texier — made a valiant attempt to expose a landmark psychology experiment for a lie. Initially, their frontal attack with substantiating evidence bowled over a receptive audience. However, despite a courageous effort to debunk the Stanford Prison Experiment, the …

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Humanity needs Psychology Is unadulterated hypocrisy

   While researching my upcoming (free) e-book, The Downfall of Psychology, I stumbled on a startling statement by some 60 renowned national and international psychology associations. In August, for obscure reasons to raise awareness, these associations joined hands to issue Humanity Needs Psychology: What Do Psychology and Psychologists Offer Humanity?Under the banner #humanityneedspsychology, they state …

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12 Principles to Break Old Habits

Starting with make no new year resolution ill-prepared The start of every new year is the season for change resolutions. Stale platitudes are to lose weight, eat healthier, drink less alcohol, exercise more, reduce stress, improve relationships, and save money. This year, refreshing pledges are gaining in popularity, like reduce your carbon footprint, eat more …

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Milgram’s Shock Experiment is a Fallacy

When is social science going to bury a fallacious darling instead of keeping it artificially alive? Perhaps after reading this. Way back in 1961, Milgram devised an experiment to test how far people would obey an authority figure to administer increasing electrical shocks to an innocent learner for making mistakes. Right up to the point …

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How to combat Power Abuse

Power abuse is the talk of the town since Hollywood crucified Harvey Weinstein for misusing his position as career gatekeeper. With Bill Cosby sentenced and late-night hosts reacting to the irony with more irony, what will actually change. Well, Hollywood’s response thus far to power related sexism is to hire more women. But will more …

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The Change Driver

A unique Change Management Instrument for Behavior Change Human behaviour is fascinating. It is displayed consciously and unconsciously. But what is behaviour exactly? How does it come about? And how can we change it? The Change Driver answers all these questions. To give you a small taste here are some brief answers. What is behaviour? …

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Five strategies to boost change

We are struggling across the globe with behaviour change in organisations. And there is a simple reason for this. The one size fits all planned approach to change does not work. Learning new skills is completely different from breaking habits or the socialisation into new groups and communities. A tailored approach is needed, depending on the …

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