Sunday, August 28, 2011
For Good or for Evil?!
After reading about psychology being a potential danger, I realized that there is so much good that psychologists are able to do for people. They assist people with some of their greatest problems whether they are family or relationship issues or other world problems such as crime and war. I, personally, would never think of psychology as trying to deceive anybody because of all of the good that comes out of it. However, it is still possible that psychology, like all knowledge can be used for evil as well. It says in the book that Nuclear power has been used to light up cities and also to destroy them. So, it seems kind of frightening to think about it. If we see much of psychology as common sense, can't psychologists or researches use this to their advantage to manipulate us?
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my lovely Aviva!
ReplyDeletei think that you have brought forth an excellent point. You know, i often wonder whether what people are telling me is really true or not. I am such a credulous person that i often just tend to believe people no matter what, especially if they are intelligent and established a certain ethos. In addition, at first glance i thought that psychology could never be used for evil and that it was only used for good in order to aid people. But then my thoughts came to an abrupt halt when i realized that i was actually completely wrong. Psychology is used for evil plenty of times in our daily life. Have you ever seen a movie in which people were tortured physically in order to give away information? When i did some research on the subject of torture i read that it is actually the psychological manipulation along with the physical agony that causes people to break down.I little less harsh example is when you use reverse psychology on people in order to get what you want.That, i am certain, everyone has heard of. Although it is very upsetting that people use psychology for evil, it is just like any other knowledge;it can be used for good or evil, just as you said aviva.I just wanted to share that little thought with you my dearest clara!
I don't really think that scientists would manipulate people. And those who want to will fail because other scientists research the same thing, and when more than one person gets different results that scientist A, scientists B and C will say, "that's not right! investigate! get rid of him!"
ReplyDeleteWell, then it is also a good thing that we learn about psychology because now if someone tells us something false we shall know.
People could lie about anything. Maybe electrons don't exist- have you ever seen one? Conspiracy theory!!
Haha Carmit! It is so true that psychology is used for evil in movies and things and reverse psychology, I would agree, is not really evil but could be manipulative! Zahava, I see your point, but I think I was referring to psychology being used to manipulate people more in the way Carmit was saying, not necessarily in scientific experiments. And yes, I completely agree that it is a wonderful thing that we are learning psychology now so that we can be informed just incase something "evil" were to come up in our lives involving psychology!
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