Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sleep No More, Zimbardo and Milgram

Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo are two recognized psychologists that conducted a some of the most famous social experiments in history to try to better understand human behavior.   What they were trying to prove in their own ways was that behavior can be significantly altered by your surroundings, and a certain environment will induce you to behave in ways that you would not expect to under normal circumstances.  

Enter Sleep No More, a fascinating and different type of theater play, created by an group called Punchdrunk.  Instead of attendees sitting and watching the show in traditional style, they are given masks, walk through rooms, decide when to interact with actors, follow actors into rooms, and even eat and drink.   Every decision the viewer makes shapes your experience, and by being anonymous participants do things that they would normally not do.   Often, at the end of the show, attendees are surprised of their actions.

Read all about behavior, your surroundings and Sleep No More in the latest Freakonomics podcast, Fear Thy Nature.

Are you sure you would act as usual, if your surroundings change significantly?

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