Prisons designed to depersonalize inmates trigger antisocial behavior.
Students learned about the three keystones of the social psychology of prison life – the Stanford Prison experiment on social roles, the Yale Milgram studies of obedience, and the Swarthmore Asch work on conformity – as a prelude to understanding the social pressures on behavior.
Today students designed prison bathrooms, cafeterias and exercise rooms in first a depersonalized fashion and then again with an eye to personalizing the space. Throughout the day students produced friendship bracelets for sale in the spring to benefit the Pen and the Penitentiary, a books-to-prison effort spearheaded by TCNJ’s Professor Michele Tarter (speaking here on Thursday).