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A NEW COURSE: Zimbardo selected
topics from hypnosis to evil to sexuality.
Linda Cicero |
When going to observe a
cult meeting, it is important to follow certain guidelines.
Use a fake name. Don’t bring jackets or anything
that might hold up a swift departure. Don’t park
too close—you don’t want them to copy down
your license plate number.
But the most important rule? “Don’t eat
anything or drink anything,” says Scott Thompson.
“That’s obvious.”
Thompson, ’06, is one of five undergraduate TAs
for psychology professor Philip Zimbardo’s new
course, Exploring Human Nature. In it, 160 students
delve into five diverse and sometimes strange aspects
of the human experience: social influence; mind control
and cults; the psychology of evil and terrorism; hypnosis
and time perspective; and human sexuality.
“I picked topics that I had done research in,
that I was somewhat an expert in, that I knew had high
student interest,” Zimbardo explains. And while
the syllabus may sound like the table of contents from
a witchcraft manual, the hallmark of the course may
not be its topics but its methodology: requiring students
to participate in three “experiential projects”
during the quarter.
“The point of the experiential projects is you
experience, personally, the phenomena we are studying
in class,” Zimbardo says. “I can describe
how salesmen use certain social influence tactics; it’s
a very different thing when you go to a used-car dealer
on El Camino and they are trying to hustle you.”
Hence the warnings issued to a small group of students
on their way to a Chinese New Year celebration of the
Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s followers, commonly known
as “Moonies.” At the group’s nondescript
hideaway in the hills above Berkeley, Zimbardo’s
students witnessed firsthand examples of social influence
such as “love-bombing”—the extensive
use of compliments and friendly body language—and
isolation techniques.
One participant, Anthony Viola, says that the Moonies’
tactics were very persuasive. “If it wasn’t
an experiment and I didn’t have anyone or I was
kind of lost, I feel like it would be easy to get sucked
into something like that,” says Viola, ’06.
“Everyone there was really caring and into world
peace.”
And despite the precautions, Viola sampled their lo
mein and fortune cookies. The verdict: “I thought
the food was horrible.”
During the segment of the class devoted to evil and
terrorism, nearly 70 students participated in a terrorist
simulation. Each of 13 “cells” had to adopt
a mock ideology and then “bomb” a symbolic
target—meaning they had to place a three-foot-high
X on their target and hope that it was not noticed by
passersby or the “CIA” (read: TAs). Infiltrators
planted in each cell tried to thwart them. One group
attacked Casa Zapata, another struck Hoover Tower and
a third went after a Starbucks on University Avenue.
“Most of the terrorist cells failed,” Zimbardo
says. “Only three or four of the 13 succeeded,
partly because [the unsuccessful ones] were not sufficiently
suspicious of infiltrators.”
Some infiltrators were quite effective. Knowing that
he had to provide hard evidence of his cell’s
plans, Graeme Mullen set up a condenser microphone and
digital recording station in his room and taped a conversation
between himself and his girlfriend, another member of
the cell.
When they found out who had betrayed them, the members
of the group were “really surprised,” says
Mullen, ’05. “My girlfriend was really mad
that I had recorded her. It was pretty funny.”
Overall, Mullen gives the course a thumbs-up. “I
was really, really caught from the first day,”
he says. “I went home and told everyone. The next
time I went to the lecture hall, it was spilling out
into the streets. [The course’s topics] are things
that don’t usually get taught in other classes,
and they’re things Zimbardo knows a lot about.”
The professor tries to make his lectures just as exciting
as the field experiences. He incorporates a lot of pop
culture references into his PowerPoint slides (the psychology
of The Manchurian Candidate, for instance),
hypnotizes his students and invites guest speakers.
During the segment on human sexuality, a former prostitute
named Veronica Monet and a dominatrix named Mistress
Morgana fielded student questions such as “Do
you report your taxes?” and “What’s
your favorite toy?” Exploring human nature, indeed.
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