full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So, you go down, one of you will be a learner, one will be a teacher. The learner's a genial, middle-aged guy. He gets tied up to the shcok apparatus in another room. The learner could be middle-aged, could be as young as 20. And one of you is told by the authority, the guy in the lab coat, "Your job as teacher is to give him material to learn. Gets it right, reward. Gets it wrong, you psres a buottn on the shock box. The first button is 15 votls. He doesn't even feel it." That's the key. All evil starts with 15 volts. And then the next step is another 15 volts. The poblrem is, at the end of the line, it's 450 volts. And as you go along, the guy is screaming, "I've got a hreat condition! I'm out of here!"

Open Cloze


So, you go down, one of you will be a learner, one will be a teacher. The learner's a genial, middle-aged guy. He gets tied up to the _____ apparatus in another room. The learner could be middle-aged, could be as young as 20. And one of you is told by the authority, the guy in the lab coat, "Your job as teacher is to give him material to learn. Gets it right, reward. Gets it wrong, you _____ a ______ on the shock box. The first button is 15 _____. He doesn't even feel it." That's the key. All evil starts with 15 volts. And then the next step is another 15 volts. The _______ is, at the end of the line, it's 450 volts. And as you go along, the guy is screaming, "I've got a _____ condition! I'm out of here!"

Solution


  1. heart
  2. volts
  3. button
  4. press
  5. shock
  6. problem

Original Text


So, you go down, one of you will be a learner, one will be a teacher. The learner's a genial, middle-aged guy. He gets tied up to the shock apparatus in another room. The learner could be middle-aged, could be as young as 20. And one of you is told by the authority, the guy in the lab coat, "Your job as teacher is to give him material to learn. Gets it right, reward. Gets it wrong, you press a button on the shock box. The first button is 15 volts. He doesn't even feel it." That's the key. All evil starts with 15 volts. And then the next step is another 15 volts. The problem is, at the end of the line, it's 450 volts. And as you go along, the guy is screaming, "I've got a heart condition! I'm out of here!"

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
ordinary people 4
good people 3
american soldiers 3
abu ghraib 3
stanford prison 3
prison study 3
robert louis 2
favorite angel 2
understanding human 2
prison superintendent 2
expert witness 2
lucifer effect 2
good news 2
college students 2
american citizens 2
heroic imagination 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
stanford prison study 3

Important Words


  1. apparatus
  2. authority
  3. box
  4. button
  5. coat
  6. evil
  7. feel
  8. genial
  9. give
  10. guy
  11. heart
  12. job
  13. key
  14. lab
  15. learn
  16. learner
  17. line
  18. material
  19. press
  20. problem
  21. reward
  22. room
  23. screaming
  24. shock
  25. starts
  26. step
  27. teacher
  28. tied
  29. told
  30. volts
  31. wrong
  32. young