Doing this can DRASTICALLY affect people's behavior....

I've been reading some interesting things about how the environment people are put in can (in some cases) STRONGLY affect your behavior....

They did a psychological study on this in the 1950s. What they did was they took a number of volunteers who were the MOST mentally healthy they could find. Then, they created a simulated "jail" in the basement of the psychology department. Half the volunteers were assigned to become prison guards, and the other half were assigned to be prisoners. The prisoners were known ONLY by their number. So a prisoner would no longer be "John McKenzie" -- instead he'd now be known as "number 473."

When put in this situation, they found that the behavior of these very normal people changed dramatically. The prison guards started to become brutal almost immediately. For no other reason than spite, they would do things like make the prisoners do pushups naked in the middle of the night -- simply because they could. As for the prisoners, they felt completely dehumanized, and many felt traumatized. Originally, this experiment was intended to go on for 2 weeks, but they had to end it after only 6 days because of the traumatic effect it was having on the "prisoners."

Remember, these were perfectly ordinary people -- those who were considered the MOST psychologically HEALTHY of the volunteers they had. The main difference was the environment.

When I read this, it really struck me. I really didn't know that the environment you put people in could have such a DRASTIC effect. Of course, I'm sure it could be used for positive as well as negative effects....

One other (quick) example is that today I was talking to an acquaintance who is a medical doctor and also a research expert in complementary medicine. I only just read this example of the environment recently, so I asked him if he knew of any examples of where the environment you put patients in could have any effect on their health.

He told me about a study of where they put some patients in an inner ward with no windows, and other patients in a room with a window out overlooking a tree. They found that the patients with the window got well twice as fast. The ONLY difference in the two sets of patients was the environment -- one set had a room with a window overlooking a tree, and the other set had no windows to the outside world at all.

Do you know of any other examples like this, where the environment makes a difference? Thanks.... I find this kind of stuff fascinating. (And very powerful to know about.)

- Dien