RS4 Fear Thy Nature

Anthony Sallemi

Professor Engel

MICROECONOMICS

20 September 2012

            The podcast “Fear Thy Nature” is based on the show Sleep No More and the famous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Sleep No More was created by the British theater group Punchdrunk and was made to show how human behavior is influenced by outside circumstances. In the show people come in right away, are given masks and are advised not to talk to anyone or use their cell phones during the show. It takes place in a warehouse and the audience members are supposed to be in a hotel and walk around and just go from place to place. The actors and actresses do not wear masks but they also don’t talk so everyone is on their own to do what they want in this “hotel”. The audience members are allowed to follow and the actors or actresses at any time and or walk around independently. The masks in this situation prove that people will act differently because their identity is hidden but yet not one commits any serious crimes at the same time. The second thing that is talked about in the podcast is the Stanford Prison Experiment which is when student volunteers were asked to play the role of inmates and prison guards. They were studying the psychological effects of being an inmate or a guard.  Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who created this experiment intended for it to last two weeks but only ended up lasting six days in fake prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. It only lasted that long because the guards liked the fake power so much they were abusing it and the inmates while some of the inmates took the abuse some could not handle it.
            After listening to the podcast I think it’s interesting what the makers of Sleep No More did and what their intent was. The British theater group Punchdrunk changed up what everyone was used to when citizens usually go to shows with actors and actresses and let them interact with people, audience members, actors and actresses like never before. It shows how outside scenarios can change the way people act and especially when they are wearing masks. It hides their identity so it lets people be who they want to be because of the mask and them being what they want to be is the secondary effect of wearing the masks. Also the Stanford Prison Experiment is another interesting situation because volunteer college students were asked to be a part of this mock prison so psychiatrist could study their behavior. The way they act is obvious to me that it would happen because of past experiences people who are given fake power can take it to their head and feel as if they are really in charge. In this case information is good but costly because yeah they found out a lot of information during the experiment but at the cost of the inmates that got abused. Both experiments show how outside scenarios can change the way people act and I feel that it is needed for citizens to get out of their element every once in a while and do something they aren’t used to doing.