PHIL 1305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Stoicism, Fundamental Attribution Error, Philip Zimbardo
26 Jul 2018
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Document Summary
Aristotle and the stoics make an empirical assumption that through habit, training, education, human beings can develop stable character traits that will motivate virtuous behavior across a wide range of situations. Situationism the movement in psychology claiming that human action is more determined by external situational circumstances than stable character traits or internal motivations. Character is what"s important, free will is what"s important. We"re conditioned from early childhood, in those societies that when we"re trying to understand the cause of ay given behavior, we attribute the cause to something inside the person. We overestimate how important the person is, we underestimate how important the situation is. A riot breaks out on the second day. Brutality, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation rampant by third day. Experiment has to be shut down on the 6th day. Only shut down because zimbardo"s ancee threatens to leave him. Prisoners forgot they could leave anytime they wanted.
