Psych! 101
Posted by Cristin
October 11th, 2006 at 09:59am
In General
Back before there were things like "ethics" and "responsibility" in psychological research, all the really good stuf happened. (Wait– haven't I talked about this before?) Like how a Stanford professor once rounded up a group of students to participate in a prison study that randomly assigned half of them to be guards and half of them to be prisoners while "in jail" in the basement of an academic building (as are most basements of academic buildings). Within hours of their assignments, the guards were pulling spectacular mind-fucks on their prisoners involving solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and extreme humiliation, and the prisoners so completely lost their sense of identity that they began referring to themselves by their assigned numbers instead of names. The experiment had to be cut short after 6 days because it became so sadistic and effed up. People are constantly referencing it when discussing other crimes against humanity.
Even better: people are constantly referencing it in the CW writer's room, because a recreation of it showed up last night on Veronica Mars.
EVEN BETTER: Rider Strong played the student-turned-sadistic guard.
Topanga? Yeah, I'd tap that.
I didn't think I could get more excited about an episode that so painfully and acutely parodied sorority rush (I devoted a year of my life "dress checking" my sisters and re-writing song lyrics so that they rhymed with "Gamma Phi," so I almost fell over when VMars got a rush invite requiring her to wear "tasteful florals" and walked into a house of singing chicks that looked like a Crest White Strips ad), but throw in some Boy Meets World alumni and a few outline points from Intro To Psych As A Social Science and I will be your slave for LIFE, Rob Thomas. A+!
4 Comments Add your own
1. Liz | October 11th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Holy. Crap. They actually sing like that?! Wow. And I thought the flowered dresses might be a stretch…
2.
Maggie | October 11th, 2006 at 11:12 am
I was in a play once where we dramatically recreated the whole “think-you’re-shocking-someone-til-they-die” experiment. It was scary and I worked really hard at it, because it was “serious.” And then the scene was cut. Long story.
Are you saying that the sorority stuff was in any way accurate? We didn’t have any frats or sororities, and I know you and Tammi and Lindsay are cool, so I just assumed that they were absurdly exaggerating.
And almost as awesome as Rider Strong — wily sociology professor Dan Castellaneta, voice of Homer Simpson himself.
3.
Cristin | October 11th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
It’s weird, because the house must have been off campus for them to have ANY liquor even contained in the house, let alone imbibed (otherwise nationals shut you down, and most CA greek systems are off campus), but if so, that’s kind of a haul for the safe ride people to come pick her up. Beyond that, it was totally accurate– someday I’ll write something about the behind the scenes parts where people spend the 2 months leading up to rush getting their outfits and conversation topics/ transitions approved, learning lyrics and dance moves, and (this was my favorite) practicing rotating through the house so that the potential new members are never left alone, talk to a variety of people (including a balance of strong/ weak “rushers”), and never catch on to the fact that all of their convos are scripted and their movements are choreographed. It’s like how they have those underground tunnels for the costume characters at Disney World. Anything to protect the illusion! And the sisters routinely each pick one rushee to champion throughout the whole process (your “rush crush”), so that was dead on. Though at my school, you weren’t allowed to talk to them outside rush parties to make sure that you weren’t dirrrrty rushing them.
That said, joining my sorority was the best thing I did in college. Totally awesome. and now I have such good stories! bonus!
4. ali | October 14th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I was in a sorority for about 8 minutes my freshman year — my sister was in one, so I figured I’d give it a try. I can’t believe I got in, because I got so bored during rush that I started making up shit to entertain myself during the millions of conversations. I went by my middle name. I was from Alaska. I was majoring in astrophysics. I was neighbors with Bill Gates and babysat for him occasionally. If rush had gone any longer I may have tried to convince them that I was the Dalai Lama or something.
But yeah, the singing and the dresses was dead on. Our greeks definitely had tons of alcohol in their on-campus houses, but then again, my alma mater — clearly effed-up.
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