1970, American psychology professor zimbardo set up an experiment called "Stanford Prison Experiment" at Stanford University to study human behavior. During the summer vacation and the empty office, some students who stayed at school were recruited with a daily salary of 15 USD (these students have never committed a crime and are physically and mentally healthy), and a two-week experiment was started by randomly assigning them to police and prisoners.

The experiment simulates the real prison environment. The prisoners were escorted to the prison by "police cars" respectively, and then searched, stripped naked, cleaned and disinfected, put on prison clothes, and put on shackles on their right feet. Similar to a real prison, prisoners' volunteers can't move freely after being locked up in the prison. Three people live in a cubicle and can only watch the wind in the corridor. Everyone has no name, only a number.

Volunteers serving as guards were not trained as prison guards, but were told that they could do anything to maintain order and law in prisons.

Shortly after the experiment began, a "prisoner" had to be released because he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The whole experiment lasted only six days for various reasons, and the participants as prisoners called it a terrible nightmare, which caused different degrees of physical and mental harm to themselves.

Obviously, this is just an experiment. Why does it do so much harm to a person?

? The prisoner whose number is 8 19 is seriously ill. When he saw the professor, he cried and said that he couldn't hold on. The professor had no choice but to let him go. At this time, the guard called all the prisoners to the corridor to line up and repeatedly shouted the slogan: "8 19 is a bad prisoner because his cell has become a mess."

After hearing this sentence, 8 19 told the professor that he would not leave because he wanted to prove to others that he was not a bad prisoner. The professor told him that you are not 8 19, your name is xxx, and the volunteers suddenly realized and left the mock prison.

Everyone in this experiment is deeply involved in their own roles, no matter the abuser or the abused, even the professor who presided over the experiment participated in it, and regarded themselves as the warden to maintain prison order.

In this case, the professor organized prisoners to hold a hearing and told them whether they would choose bail if they had the opportunity to ask for bail, but they were not paid before. Almost all the prisoners agreed to bail.

At this time, no one protested. As long as they put forward to interrupt the experiment, they will get the same result as bail, but all the people have taken the experiment as true and have no idea of resisting it.

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In the whole process, so many people, why didn't anyone realize that this was just an experiment? !

In the situation of "role-playing", boys who are physically and mentally healthy gradually forget their true identity, and "guards" abuse prisoners, all kinds of violence and even insult their personality by using their power.

Under such torture, the "prisoner" is on the verge of mental breakdown and lives like a walking corpse. He thinks that only bail is his only way out, and he has no idea that quitting the experiment is a faster way than bail.

They simply forget that they are not criminals. This is just an experiment, not a real prison!

Hannah arendt, a famous thinker, believes that when a person loses the ability to think and stops thinking, it is easy to become a puppet without thinking. Everyone is a potential prisoner as long as the conditions are right.

For example, suppose we go to the movies. Generally speaking, we will have opinions about one or more characters in the movie and feel that we are really in the movie. The attractive scenes created by the director will make your emotions deeply immersed in the plot of the film.

When you are "absorbed" by the plot, even if nothing described in the movie plot happens in your life, you will still lose consciousness about where you are, what you have done and what you feel.

Compared with the feeling of sitting on your back, your emotions are more in line with the content expressed in the film!

In this state, people will be highly nervous and lose their thinking ability, which is also the reason why "prisoners" are deeply involved.

This state often makes people fall into the whirlpool of emotions, so they can't keep their emotional choices and views on the outside world. Compared with "rationality", this state often pays more attention to emotion, which is commonly known as following feelings.

It is irrational to follow your feelings, but it is not difficult to be rational. In NLP, the ability of reason is called "pulling away". "Pull away" is used to describe the process of having external consciousness about yourself (or any other point of view).

This concept is very abstract. You might as well understand that in addition to your eyes, you have a third eye, and this third eye has been watching you. When you lose your thinking ability, this third eye will remind you to prevent you from falling into it.

When you are thinking about "yourself", "stop and look", "take a step back", "free yourself from something" and "free yourself from a certain situation", you are going through a process of being pulled away.

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Compared with emotions, pulling away is more rational, so thinking will be more than action. No matter when, pulling away is always an objective feeling, which will make you look at the problem comprehensively and predict the situation. When you are in a state of withdrawal, your emotional tension will unconsciously decrease.

Just like when we are sad, sad or angry, if we are always immersed in it, we will always be nervous and highly nervous, and what we say and do will often not be considered by our brains. At this time, we are like "prisoners" who don't know how to go out, and we are easily led by others.

But at this time, if we can get out, objectively analyze the ins and outs of the whole thing and find out the reasons for this emotion, then your tension will gradually decrease and you will have different views on this matter. At this time, you can also look at the problem more comprehensively and estimate the situation.

Even if a situation makes people nervous, lose their thinking ability and indulge in it, just like a "prisoner" in a prison, as long as we know how to get away in time and feel and look at the whole incident objectively, we can get out of this state and be reborn.

Aristotle once said: "The ultimate value of life lies in the ability to awaken and think, not just in survival."

It's actually easy to survive alone. A job, a salary, enough to support. And to live high, self-awakening and independent thinking are essential, otherwise what is the difference with salted fish? !

I remember reading a very interesting joke before, "The beautiful skin is the same, and the interesting soul is one in a million." A skin can become beautiful through external methods, but a soul can only become interesting through internal exploration, self-awakening and filling its own interior.

So do you want to live as a "prisoner" or have an interesting soul? !

It's actually very simple, but it's also very difficult. The key depends on how you choose.

The road, right under your feet, depends on how you go.

Shula PS:

This article has been dragged on for quite a long time, and I hope you can learn something from it.

In fact, in real life, there are not a few "prisoners".

I hope everyone can wake up after reading it and constantly improve their thinking ability.

Today's "ordinary road", everyone is ordinary, but it is so extraordinary. I hope everyone can have the life they want.

Details of the Stanford prison experiment can be found in http://www.prisonexp.org/..