http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/10/16/ae/today/13007784.txt
PostStar.com
Glens Falls, New York :: Thursday, October 25, 2007
Debating involvement in torture
Published: Tuesday, October 16, 2007
(excerpt)
Unlike the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric
Association, the American Psychological Association has yet to issue
a
categorical statement sanctioning its members from being present or
involved with interrogation. The debate within the APA reflects the
belief that psychologists can assist interrogators in using more
humane methods (e.g. helping interrogators establish rap****t with
prisoners) and can serve as watchdogs for abuses.
(excerpt)
However, there is a strong and vocal dissenting voice in the APA that
decries psychologists having any role in interrogation whatsoever. In
addition to tacitly legitimizing potential human rights abuses, the
presence of psychologists in situations in which torture takes place
makes them vulnerable to what has been dubbed The Lucifer Effect.
(excerpt)
The lesson of the Zimbardo prison experiment was that situational
variables have the power to supersede participants' personality
traits: Under the wrong cir***stances, good people can wind up doing
very bad things. Zimbardo's new book concludes that this can happen
on
a societal scale as well (e.g. Hitler's Germany; the 1994 slaughter
of
Tutsis in Rwanda). It's not enough to look back and say the devil
made
me do it.
....hot for teacher...
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