Preview

Theory of Knowledge Journal (Explain How Human and Natural Sciences Are Similar)

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
418 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Theory of Knowledge Journal (Explain How Human and Natural Sciences Are Similar)
Explain how the Human and Natural Sciences are similar.

The human and natural sciences are similar in a sense that the two subjects require a certain theory or perhaps hypothesis in order to conduct an experience and such. By means, let’s take psychology and physics as an example. In both sciences, scientists/psychologists require a generated hypothesis to investigate a certain study. Hypothesis acts as a guiding question to some extent for them since it is their goal to find out if their generated hypothesis is correct or incorrect. The significance of hypothesis is that it is a logical statement which requires a variable. Likewise, in order for a hypothesis to work, there must be two variables and put into a logical statement; if variable x….then variable y. Besides, without theories, both human and natural sciences would lose its purpose as well as credibility. This is because without a purpose for investigation, both sciences would be pointless. Yet, the use of theories as well as hypothesis is a similar aspect between the two sciences since generating hypothesis develops the purpose of any investigation.

However on the other hand, the difference between human and natural sciences are that a human science mostly revolves around the aspect of human behavior. Though, natural sciences require investigation beyond human behaviors. Human sciences such as Psychology are concerned of an individual’s psychological features in general. For instance, the famous Stanford Prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo aimed to investigate the effect of roles of prisoner and guard as a cause of a certain abusive behavior in prison. In this experiment, Zimbardo assigned participants in a role of either guards or prisoners. As the experiment proceeded, participants who played the role of prisoners began to feel uncomfortable with the experiment which has also resulted in a few withdraws. The outcome of the experiment suggests that roles play a major in one’s behavior

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University from August 14–20, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. Twenty-four male students across the country out of seventy-five were carefully chosen to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The basement of the building was altered to seem as if it were an actual prison. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and initially subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who endeavored to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to endure. Two of the prisoners vacated the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly culminated after only six days granting it was planned to proceed two weeks.…

    • 924 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1971, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was to test human behavior when one's role had been altered into authoritative one. Still powerful after all these years the experiment was the most powerful and popular experiment of all time (O'Toole, K). Researches set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University building. There were the 24 students out of 70 volunteers chosen to play the roles of the prisoners or prison guards.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Milgram and Zimbrado

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Difference #1. A major difference between Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s studies is that, in the prison study, only one experimental manipulation was performed — being assigned to the role of prisoner or guard. This is a major limitation because we cannot know, as we did in the Milgram study, which factors in the situation were most important for the behaviors observed. There is no doubt that each participant’s self-definition as prisoner or guard was important, but it might have helped us to develop a deeper understanding of how such a self-definition can be maintained if Zimbardo and his colleagues had varied other factors in the situation. For example, would wearing normal clothes, which might have caused increased feelings of individuality, have resulted in decreased role-playing? Would a decrease in the reality of the simulation (perhaps by removing the bars on the doors, or having campus security “arrest” the prisoners) have done the same? It would have been very interesting, for example, if we had found that none of these factors were important — that, instead, it was simply the assigning of an arbitrary social role by an authority figure and the…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phillip K. Zimbardo, who is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, directed the Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as the Zimbardo Experiment. The goal of the Zimbardo experiment was to research how willing human beings would imitate to the characters of correctional officers and inmates in an acting role that replicated life behind bars. But what really happens when you remove the freedoms of human beings and place them in subservient positions and place them in jail cell type settings? The answer is that the mind and physical well-being is drastically and forever changed for the worse, which Mr. Zimbardo’s tests proved.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zimbardo Prison Eperiment

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the field of psychology, experiments are an essential part of the study. Guidelines have been fenced around the experiments to protect the subjects being tested. Unethical experiments had to take place in order for these guidelines to be placed. In 1971, Psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment that changed the future of psychology and how it is practiced today, The Stanford Experiment. According to Kendra Cherry, author of an article The Stanford Experiment, researchers asked how subjects would react when placed in a prison environment.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1971 Phillip Zimbardo conducted a controversial study know as the Stanford prison experiment. The experiment was a psychological study of human reactions to being imprisoned and how the effects would interfere with the normal behaviors of both authorities and the inmates in prison. Zimbardo and his team hypothesized “that prison guards and convicts were self selecting of a certain disposition that would naturally lead to poor conditions.” Zimbardo used undergraduate volunteers to play the roles of the guards and the prisoners in a mock prison he created in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. He then recorded how both the prisoners and guards quickly adapted to their roles, and soon this lead to one-third of the authorities taking place in sadistic acts towards the prisoners, which was argued to have lead to psychologically harmful situations. Due to the appalling conditions of the prison, both sanitarily and psychologically the experiment ended on August 30, 1971 just six days after it began, which was eight days short of the foresighted fourteen days it was supposed to have lasted. Many similarities in the ethical concerns of the Stanford experiment were found in the Milgram experiment which was conducted in 1961 by Stanley Milgram one of Zimbardo’s high school friends.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Zimbardo Research Paper

    • 1014 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The value of the study in relation to social psychology was the demonstration on how social roles can have a negative effect on a person’s behavior. It showed that putting an individual in a bad situation can potentially change their behavior or basic personal characteristic. I opened the path to further examining how situations individuals are placed in can drastically their behavior. The experiment showed that with random assignment, the social class of individuals before the experiment did not matter. It also showed that when told to do what is necessary to maintain order in the makeshift prison, the guards took actions that they probably would never have done in their life. It showed how easily people can change in order to maintain control and authority.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1971 Philipp Zimbardo carried out one of the most ethically controversial psychological experiment the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’. Originally he aimed to study how much our behavior is structured by the social role we occupy. Describing the study briefly 24 undergraduates with no criminal and psychological record were chosen for the research to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of Stanford University Psychology Building, equipped by hidden cameras and microphones. As the lead researcher, Zimbardo was observing the events from a different room, giving instructions to the guards. The research was supposed to last about two weeks. However, aggressive and violent behavior quickly appeared on the behalf of the group playing the role of the guards, while prisoners became depressed and passive. Ultimately some of the prisoners were subject to torture. Since the participants assimilated with their role rapidly and provided surprising psychological outcome, Dr Zimbardo shot down the research after 5 days. The experiment meant to demonstrate the power of authority, support of the situational attribution of behavior rather than the dispositional attribution. For forty years it was criticized as well as argued when it came to the relation of ethics and psychology. If it would be carried out today it would fail to meet the Ethical Principals of the Psychologist and Code of Conduct of the American Psychological Association. This paper will discuss the main unethical elements of the Stanford Prison Experiment, such as the violation of privacy and confidentiality, physical and mental harm during an experiment and the researcher’s involvement of the warden role.…

    • 2166 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In today’s fast paced society many of us have a tough time dealing and coping with our problems. This is when psychologists come into play. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. It deals with the mind and how we process mental and emotional things. Philip Zimbardo’s thoughts on psychology are, “I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” And this is exactly what he tested in his Stanford Prison experiment.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psyc

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Experiments have long been the method of choice in psychology. However, the experimental approach does have its limitations. Describe these limitations and explain why many psychologists have called for more field research…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Abu Ghraib - Essay

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Zimbardo’s experiment they constructed a prison in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building. There were twenty-one participants (ten prisoners and eleven guards), all of which were…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Taser

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Maxfield and Babbie in their book Basic of Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology explain the purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment was to test the situational hypothesis of the prison environment itself. Maxfield and Babbie state, “…the prison environment creates dehumanizing conditions independent of the kinds of people who live and work in the institutions (Maxfield and Babbie, p. 43. 2009).” The experiment took on an exploratory design, which indicates the specific problem had not been clearly defined (Maxfield & Babbie, 2009). Zimbardo himself could only compare experiments of this nature to his high school friend, Milgram who conducted research on obedience to authority figures as related to the Holocaust. Exploratory research is begun to explore an issued regarding society to answer of the questions needed to conduct further studies. To this date the Stanford Prison Experiment has not be replicated exactly in any series of further on experiments related to the outcome of the original. The experiment was created by Curtis Haney, Craig Banks, and Philip Zimbardo (1973) in the basement of the Stanford University psychology department building where the “prison” was constructed. The “prison” consisted of cells, a “yard”, and a solitary confinement cell. An ad was placed in a newspaper and 75 volunteers answered the call but only twenty-one were chosen. The subjects with physical or psychological problems were vetted and those left were offered $15.00 a day to participate. The left over subjects were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners (Babbie & Maxfield, 2009).…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Over the years there have been some controversial psychology experiments. Experiments are a way to find an answer to life’s unanswered questions and to make a difference in this world. Not every experiment ended in a wonderful way; instead it is the complete opposite. One of the most controversial experiments is the Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment lead to a disturbing results leaving the subjects in trauma. Psychologists must stop experiments that can harm an individual.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Stanford Prison experiment was study about mental health and how people will abuse their power if given the chance. The results from the Stanford experiment were astounding. We learned that environments can have an impact on our behavior. Our social environments can define us. In the Stanford prison experiment the prisoners broke down, rebelled, and became passively resigned. We learned that role playing affects attitudes. According to the class textbook “When you adopt a new role—when you become a college student, marry, or begin a new job—you are mindful of the social prescriptions.” (Myers, 2014). Before the Stanford Prison experiment took place the guards and inmates were tested to be in great health condition. The guards in the Stanford experiment came into the experiment in their right mind. I find it…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The participants were all male college students. I feel that this study is a part of social psychology because the situation that they were put was a social situation that for some of them was extremely stressful which is why the study only lasted five days instead of two weeks. I feel that this study was very wrong to do the way Zimbardo did it for example having the prisoner participants should not have been brought in the way they were. To me this study is a social study but not a good social study because if I was a prisoner participant I would have post traumatic stress after the study was…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays