Monday, November 24, 2008
Das ExperimentThis play was based on the Stanford prison experiment, where a group of volunteers were randomised into either prisoners or guards. It was actually boring but became very engaging towards the end, when the guards became too engrossed in their roles and abuse became rampant. Not a bad effort at all. And there were a lot of parallels to the real world.
There actually was another similar social experiment dealing with the subject of authority. In this case however, instead of being given authority, the Milford experiment dealt with how people respond to an authority figure who commanded them to do things that were in conflict with their own morals. It gave very disturbing results.
And finally on a related subject, I came across this concept of cognitive dissonance. In essence, it is an awkward feeling you get when you have 2 simultaneous, contradictory thoughts - like when you spend that $500 on something you really like, or buyer's remorse. And when dissonance occurs, we come up with justifications to do one or the other. Of particular interest especially to our teachers-to-be would be the toy experiment by Aronson and Carlsmith which tests the power of self-justification and external justification in a situation of dissonance. In a first set-up, children were forbidden from playing with a toy. Some were threatened with severe punishment, the others were warned with milder punishments. They didn't play with the toy in this scenario, but later were told they could play with the toy. In the latter, it was found that the children who were told the milder punishments paradoxically refused to play with the toy. Without sufficient external justification, these children subsequently devalued the toy as they had to self-justify the reasons for not playing with it.
*****
PhotoshootI borrowed Eng Soo's gear and had a good weekend trip at the Botanic Gardens taking photos! OK, it's actually very bad, since it's really tipping me over into splurging on stuff that I want. Probably not impossible to do with simple cameras, but these were just so awesome for the amount of effort put in.
Best shot so far, one which I was really happy with:
*****
Wagyu burgerDid up a hurried dinner on Sat for 4, with some wagyu beef burgers that I bought some time ago. Calorie galore! It was a simple stacking of ingredients: grilled zucchini, asparagus spears, beefsteak tomato, wagyu burgers grilled over fresh rosemary, egg, bearnaise sauce and a touch of truffle salt.
Wenky
6:49 AM
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