Do we and should we study human behaviour objectively?

Leonardo Savoy

Do we and should we study human behaviour objectively?

            Throughout the entire human legacy, humans have been trying to study their society and how they react to certain situations. This analysis is usually done through objective lenses, meaning that analysis is based off facts, is measurable and observable. But how do we know this? Well, simply look at several experiments performed in the past century, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Obedience Experiment. Both are based off objective research, as there was a hypothesis to be tested and it was performed to draw conclusions. However, when it comes to whether we should study human behaviour objectively, I believe that we should, since it seems to be the most effective and most reliable way to study human behaviour. It would not be reliable to study human behaviour based off subject resources, meaning: assumptions, personal options and beliefs.

            Therefore, let’s start by talking about why we should use objective research in order to study human behaviour. In order to prove the challenges of objective research and the effectiveness of it, let’s use the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, students looking for a summer job were randomly assigned a position of either an inmate or a guard. By doing this, the experiment was attempting to test the psychology of a prison environment and how people react in different positions. Even though the plan of this experiment was to last for two weeks, it was stopped with only six days of experiment. But why is that? What was only a fake prison turned out to seem like a real one. First of all, the inmates started to rebel against the guards. One of them had a mental breakdown and had to be released due to such situation. But the inmates were not the only ones to have mental changes. The fake guards started to act and think like real ones, mainly the leader of this experiment, Phillip Zimbardo. He decided to be a guard, the chief guard. Through this, he would be able to feel and understand the experiment without the need of other sources for information.  Dr. Zimbardo reported that he suffered great mental changes, losing control of his actions, and acting as a real guard. With this experiment and several others, it was observed that one can’t simply set up an objective experiment and let things roll. Predictions made in the beginning of the experiment can turn out completely different, as seen in the Stanford Prison Experiment. A human is not a machine, and therefore suffers radical psychological and emotional changes if he/she is exposed to such tests, which makes it unethical to examine humans as if they were objects. Therefore, even though it is much more effective to examine human behavior objectively, it is unethical to do this through the methods effectuated before. Stanley Milgram describes a great reason for why we should do this, as he states "The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act." This explains why we should study humans objectively, as humans adapt to different situations they are exposed to.

            However, do we and should we study human behaviour effectively? As seen in several tests, such as the Milgram Obedience Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment, we attempt to study human behaviour objectively quite often. We do this since it is observed that it is one of the most effective ways of analysing humans. As Stanley Milgram explains, the human social psychology does not adapt with the kind of man, it adapts in different kind of situations they are exposed to. Therefore, as this kind of research is the most effective method of researching human behaviour, we should continue to use it. Nevertheless, it is also seen that there are several negative aspects of this kind of research. To a certain extent, it is proven to be unethical to research humans so radically, since we are not machines and we suffer several mental changes. This still leaves us with the question of whether we should study human behaviour effectively, since there are so many counterclaims for this question.