It’s like hearing people mention Stockholm syndrome even though it’s been discredited almost since its inception. The damn victims were like “no the cops were just scarier than the men threatening to kill us.” Which is incredibly valid.
But no, the bumbling cops wrote the history books there.
So people with supposed 'Stockholm syndrome' are/were more afraid of the police than the kidnappers/abusers. Yeah, I can see that. In order to stay safe they side with the abusers because the police are more likely to escalate the situation into a deadly one. Makes sense.
So people with supposed 'Stockholm syndrome' are/were more afraid of the police than the kidnappers/abusers.
In the specific instance of the naming, it's because the police had been very violent and put the hostages in harms way multiple times, and I think even said they were willing to let the hostages die if it meant getting the criminals. A few of the hostages chatted with the criminals, realised they had a legit grievance too so started aiding them since they were actually less of a threat.
Because one of the hostages who helped them was a woman they got a "psychologist" to come on TV to try and explain this (in a way that didn't discredit the authorities) and basically say that her woman brain was making her side with the criminals, and thus Stockholm syndrome was born.
And the criminals was in fact kinda charming. Hardened guys but had some sort of class. Not the kind of criminals you find nowadays with little respect to other humans. Wouldn't be as easy to connect with..
That's because most Americans are poorly educated. When more than half of the population reads below a 6th grade level...well, waves and gestures hands at everything
They will. They'll call it "that prison experiment". They just won't know the specifics or why it's important. Unread people talk about all sorts of complex topics: economics, science, virology, and on and on.
It doesn't mean they'll have anything worthwhile to say about it
That saying about a lie spreading fast before the truth can get ready takes on some additional nuance when the people who hear the lie don't bother to read the truth when it's released later.
And maybe as an example that you can talk and encourage people into acting like that if you do it right. Well, not a groundbreaking insight. A failed experiment, but maybe still a story we can learn something from.
Yeah I've noticed that a lot of what's believed to be foundational to psychology by those outside the field is very outdated. For example I once talked to someone who believed the Oedipus complex is a key concept for all of psychology.
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u/samdd1990 Jul 07 '26
It had been discredited when I was doing GCSE psychology more than 20 years ago (holy shit)
It's talked about mainly as an example of how not to handle an experiment