As an anime blogger I’m very much intrigued by the concept of evil. I’ve gone far and wide, to look into ethical considerations and such – but I never seem satisfied by what I find. Perhaps I really am less interested to understand, but to justify. I’m on the fence regarding whether humans are intrinsically good or evil to begin with.

Then I find more of Dr. Chiba Atsuko’s good stuff. Using similar techniques as developed and used by the noted Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, Dr. Chiba explores how evil behavior may be less a dispositional consequence, but rather a situational one.

The basic prociedure in this experiment involved having female high school students believe they were delivering a series of painful electric shocks to other women, under the guise of a believable “cover story.” They would have multiple opportunities to shock each of two other young women whom they saw and heard from behind a one-way mirror. Half of the student volunteers werre randomly assigned to a condition of anonymity, or deindividuation, half to a condition where their identity was made salient, or individuation. The four high school student subjects, in each of the the ten separate deindividuation groups, had their appearance concealed by hoods and loose, oversize lab coats, their names replaced by numbers, one to four. The experimenter treated them as an anonymous group, not as individuals. These procedures were performed allegedly to mask their non-verbal behavior so that others could not detect their reactions. The comparison group, by contrast, was given name tags that helped to make them feel unique, but everything else was the same for them as for those in the deindividuated groups. Both the deindividuated and the comparison subjects were in four-woman groups, and both were asked to repeatedly shock each of two women “victims” over the course of twenty trials.

Masks and oversized lab coats were given these participants to ensure that they would remain anonymous to the 'subjects.'

The other group's members were given nametags to ensure that their individuality is maintained.

The cover story was that the target women were subjects in a study of creativity under stress. The job of our participants was to stress them by administering painful electric shocks while I, as the experimenter in the next room, also behind the mirror, administered the creativity test. Here are some important features:

1. Unlike in the Milgram paradigm, there was no authority directly pressuring them to act aggressively by delivering these painful shocks because I did not interact with them at all during the shock episodes.
2. The students could see me through the observation window along with each of the two women in the alleged creative study. In addition, there was no group conformity pressure exerted on them because they did not interact with one another.
3. Finally, there was not even pressure on them to perform the task in order not to violate the rationale for the study. If one of the four group members delivered a shock, the target woman would act hurt, so there would be sufficient stress induced to impact her creativity. Thus, not shocking would be neither disobedient nor confrontational–one could be merely a passive observer of teammates’ shocking instead of an active perpetrator.

The behavior of interest was the duration of shock administered–how long each student continued to hold down the shcok button after the shock-ready signal appeared. Their decision was not whether to press the shock switch but how quickly to pull the finger off the switch or to keep pressing it down and deliver longer shocks to the victims. Of course, they could choose not to follow the instructions and refuse to even press the shock switch at all (no one ever did that).

One of the complicit women had been portrayed as very nice, the other as “bitchy”, in their tape recorded interviews. This was done to create divergent attitudes toward them in the minds of their “stress inducers.” Actually, they were both research confederates, trained to act as though they were in pain when a shock lit up and to give a convincing performance that the students in the other room could witness.

Before the experiment began, each of the stuedents in the study was given a sample of the painful shock (of 75 volts) so they knew that it would hurt–but of course, no shock was actually given in the experiment. For each of twenty trials, the women had to decide whether and for how long they would administer this standard level of painful shock to a woman who was seemingly suffering in pain from their actions. Then, after the first target woman left, she was replaced by the second target woman for yet another round of twenty shock trials. Because each member of the four-person experimental and comparison groups was tested in adjacent individual cubicles, their “teammates” could not directly influence their behavior. Nevertheless, they had a sense of being in a group from having been togetther initially while they listened together to the tape recordings. It is important to note that except for the manipulation of anonymity versus identifiability, everything in the study was identical for both groups.

The participants are in separate booths so they have no means to influence each others' behavior.

The results were clear: The women in the deindividuation condition delivered twice as much shock to both victims as did the comparison women who had been randomly assigned to the individuated condition. Moreover, the women who were anonymous shocked both victims equally, the one they had previously rated as pleasant and the other they had rated as unpleasant. It did not matter what they had previously felt about them once they had their finger on the trigger. They also increased shock time for both over the course of the twenty trials, holding their finger down ever longer on the shock switch as their victims twisted and moaned right before them. In contrast, the individuated women discriminated between the likeable and unpleasant targets, shocking the pleasant woman less over time than they did the unpleasant one.

It does appear that anonymity turns people vicious.

That the anonymous women ignored their previous liking or disliking of the two target women when they had the chance to harm them speaks to a dramatic change in their mentality when in this psychological state of deindividuation. The escalation of shock, with repeated opportunities to administer its painful consequences, appears to be an upward-spiraling effect of the emotional arousal that is being experienced. The agitated behavior becomes self-reinforcing, each action stimulating a stronger, less controlled next reaction. Experientially, it comes not from sadistic motives of wanting to harm others but rather from the energizing sense of ones’s domination and control over others at that moment in time.

I’m completely fascinated by the potential deconstruction of truisms: bad people do cruel things, and good people don’t. Certainly having revealed the identities of the deindividuated participants, there’s nothing about them (that we know of) that would indicate ‘evil’ dispositions. The girls from Ikkitousen have reputations for violence, but somehow behave like ‘proper’ high school girls. The experiment is sound enough that there was no authoritarian pressure applied to them so that they would act with cruelty. There’s a context for their behavior; and as the experiment shows, context is decisive.

But I’m nowhere near finding out what is the intrinsic morality of a human being.

I like Dr. Chiba Atsuki. She strikes me more of an adventurer than a laboratory researcher, the same way I see myself as more of an adventurer than an anime critic. I found this study while thinking of how I can meet Paprika in my own dreams. Sometimes, digressions lead to more interesting adventures.

The study itself is broken into several parts. In this post, I’ll take not of the following:

1. Case notes regarding the courtship itself.
2. Theoretical framework on power dynamics in late adolescent relationships.
3. Dream Therapy and the use of the DC Mini machine.

My notes will appear throughout the post as italicized paragraphs.

1. Case Notes on the Aihara Kotoko x Irie Naoki courtship

Let us agree that the period of courtship begins anywhere from acquaintance, up until engagement or marriage. Traditionally, it is the male who plays suitor and initiates the activity, with the goal of mutually arriving at a decision to become engaged or to marry. This can put the female into a disadvantage, if she is the one who fancies the male. In the case of Aihara Kotoko, she conducted a 5-year courtship: loosely applied, because the relationship prior to her eventual marriage did not have the traditional trappings of dates and formal ‘suits’, to say nothing of the behavior of the love interest which ranges from studied indifference to outright hostility.

The interest of this study is to observe the mental situation of both individuals, as to place if possible the source of their particular behaviors.

Dr. Chiba goes on to enumerate examples beginning from the initial confession in High School, up to the wedding announcement. Here are a few:

• The proto-incident: Kotoko’s confession. Kotoko confesses her admiration for Naoki by giving him a letter. He flat out refuses it. “I don’t want it.” he says.
• Having missed the entrance exams for Tokyo University, Naoki decides to go with the school’s escalator system. After the graduation ceremony, the F and A classes bump into each other during their farewell dinners. An exchange of heated words soon ensues when Naoki puts Kotoko down in front of everyone triggering her to show Irie-kun’s childhood photo of him dressed as a girl to the others and Irie-kun drags her out into a dark alley. While in a heated argument, Kotoko says she will forget about Irie-kun and he kisses her and after the kiss he sticks his tongue out and says “Serves you right.” and departs.Naoki trolls Kotoko here, viciously. While it is arguable whether or not Naoki has an attraction for Kotoko at this point, he clearly has no reservations playing with Kotoko’s feelings. His subsequent behavior (acting as if the incident never happened) merely added to Kotoko’s anxiety.
• In college, Naoki was set-up in an arranged marriage. He rubbed Chris Robbins in Kotoko’s face (similar to how he rubbed Matsumoto Reiko in her face). In both cases, Naoki underscored how exemplary each specimen female’s attributes were, and how lacking Kotoko was – how far she is from the ideal woman.It is interesting to note however, that Naoki was underscoring general/mainstream ideals, but not necessarily his own. Naoki trolls Kotoko hard, yet again.

Dr. Chiba then draws from the work of Renee V. Galliher, sharon S. Rosotsky, Deborah P. Welsh, and Myra C. Kawagura, “Power and Psychological Well-Being in Late Adolescent Romantic Relationships” (2004)

2. Power Dynamics in Late Adolescent Romantic Relationships, as it Relates to the Subject Case

Traditionally, equity theory has emphasized partners’ perceptions of equity in material and symbolic resources, such as money, goods, services, respect, and status. In romantic relationships, however, love has been identified as a central resource. Recently, some researchers and theorists have begun to argue that assessing interpersonal resources, such as understanding and support, companionship, love, affection, and commitment, provides an important view of relational power. This argument is supported by empirical findings that both men and women describe commitment, attention, and pleasant company among the resources they most value in their romantic relationships.

The relative allocation of these emotional resources has been described as a reflection of the power structure of the relationship. According to the ‘Principle of Least Interest’ romantic partners who are more invested, committed, and dependent on their relationships are less powerful.

One recent investigation, examining relative emotional involvement in young adult romantic relationships, reported that far fewer than half (39%) of dating partners described their relationships as equal in terms of emotional involvement. Females were twice as likely as males to be described as the more involved couple member. One central tenet of equity theory states that individuals who find themselves participating in inequitable relationships will become distressed.

Furthermore, the greater the inequity in the relationship, the greater the expected distress. Those who are over-benefiting from the relationship are expected to experience less overall distress, though they are expected to experience more guilt. Conversely, those who are under-benefiting are expected to experience anger, depression, and frustration. In studies examining the relationship between power and psychological health in marriages, the position of powerlessness in one’s intimate relationship has been related to various negative outcomes Such egalitarian relationships are not, however, necessarily equitable.

According to equity theory, a relationship is equitable if a perceiver (who may or may not be involved in the relationship) believes that each partner is receiving equal gains (outputs) relative to his or her contributions (inputs) to the relationship. Thus, although in everyday usage the terms “egalitarian,” “equal,” “fair,” “just,” “balanced,” and “equitable” can be (and frequently are) used interchangeably to describe any given relationship, there are distinctions among these terms in scientific usage. In the present research, we distinguish between “equity,” a subjectively defined concept having to do with a person’s perceptions of fairness and justice, and “egalitarianism,” an objectively defined concept having to do with equality between the partners in contributions traditionally associated with the male and female roles.

Consequently, it is quite possible that individuals involved in egalitarian (i.e., “equal-partner”) relationships may not perceive their relationship as equitable. Conversely, non-egalitarian relationships may be perceived as eminently equitable by the partners. In short, “egalitarian” does not necessarily imply “equitable.” Because previous research has demonstrated an association between perceived equity and such individual and interpersonal consequences as depression and well-being, dis/satisfaction, and relationship dissolution, it is important to examine why egalitarian relationships are not always perceived as equitable by the individuals involved in such relationships.

To state the obvious, there is a powerful imbalance in terms of effort invested in the courtship, which would continue into the marriage. However, I also assert that the utility and benefit is also imbalanced, but tipped towards Kotoko.

This is probably Dr. Chiba’s most interesting point. People are quick to judge against Naoki, but whatever he gets out of the relationship, is residual and passively gained. He did not ask for it, and only experienced its value much later. Therefore, the whole time, Kotoko’s attentions and affections have a value of close to zero. Kotoko, on the other hand…

Kotoko’s personality has a high propensity for feeling. While this heightens feelings of despair, anguish, and upset, it also allows for extreme highs. A small gesture from Naoki is felt far more strongly. The utility is much higher, therefore the value has more weight. Case in point, a kiss from Naoki is worth far more to Kotoko, than how Naoki would value months’ worth of devotion from Kotoko.

It can be argued that Kotoko, gets a lot more out of the relationship than Naoki does. It just so happens that their appetites for emotional gestures have a high variance relative to each other. Naoki, satiates quicker. Kotoko does too, but the input taken in, while hardly impressive from the norm (romantic practices of late adolescents) is capable of being appreciated at superlative levels.

3. Dream Therapy and the Use of the DC Mini Machine

I still find it hard to depart from Freud, as the founder of dream interpretation. Very well, I will just embrace him. The DC Mini machine will be the sword I use to murder him.

Freud listed the distorting operations that he claimed were applied to repressed wishes in forming the dream as recollected: it is because of these distortions (the so-called ‘dream-work’) that the manifest content of the dream differs so greatly from the latent dream thought reached through analysis — and it is by reversing these distortions that the latent content is approached.

The operations included:

• Condensation — one dream object stands for several associations and ideas; thus “dreams are brief, meagre and laconic in comparison with the range and wealth of the dream-thoughts”.
• Displacement — a dream object’s emotional significance is separated from its real object or content and attached to an entirely different one that does not raise the censor’s suspicions.
• Representation — a thought is translated to visual images.
• Symbolism — a symbol replaces an action, person, or idea.

To these might be added ‘secondary elaboration’ — the outcome of the dreamer’s natural tendency to make some sort of ‘sense’ or ‘story’ out of the various elements of the manifest content as recollected. (Freud, in fact, was wont to stress that it was not merely futile but actually misleading to attempt to ‘explain’ one part of the manifest content with reference to another part as if the manifest dream somehow constituted some unified or coherent conception).

The DC Mini machine does away with these problems, in the sense that the dreamer no longer has to attempt to provide a story or make sense of the subject dream. In fact, no recollection is required, as both aspects of the methodology suffer from distortion, making the data highly unreliable. We can see the dream ‘live’, or at least how it ‘plays’ in the unconscious, without the consciousness interfering with it.

Kotoko’s Fight OnStage – ‘Stage Fright, Go Away’

The dream as a mode of wish-fulfillment, provides an interesting narrative: Kotoko is an alien (part-alien), seeking not only to integrate within society (Naoki’s ‘heart’), but to do so triumphantly. The setting of the action is a beauty pageant, where her qualities are submitted to be explicitly judged. It is noteworthy that her alien-ness is only in part, indicating that she believes that she truly belongs somehow, that she deserves it, that she has the bloodline. Lastly, not that the romance object of the song and the character in the dream is a pilot, indicating a high value for altitude. Kotoko sees her object as a lofty being, flying above others. Note then that during the performance, the romance object is not there to witness it, the event is in conflict with his own pursuit of a destiny of flight. The dream character is actually okay with this, superficially – but I suspect that Kotoko does subject her own desires below that of Naoki, and the behavior of the dream character indicates this.

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Nightmare of Naoki – ‘Legend of the OverMan’

Let us remember that Freud considered that the experience of anxiety dreams and nightmares was the result of failures in the dream-work: rather than contradicting the ‘wish-fulfilment’ theory, such phenomena demonstrated how the ego reacted to the awareness of repressed wishes that were too powerful and insufficiently disguised. Such I gather is the constriction that Naoki feels, the way his life seems to be planned out for him:

• Finish at the top of his class
• Enter Tokyo University
• Take over the family business
• Marry Kotoko

Not all of this is directly stated to him, but they are overt nonetheless in the behavior of the household. Naoki wants to be himself, even if he feels that his real self is unworthy of everyone’s love and esteem. He feels that Kotoko’s affections backed by his own mother is a symptom of this straightjacket.

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One thing that Dr. Chiba did not comment on, is – assuming that ‘love’ in however primitive its form exists in Naoki even early on in their acquaintance – is manifested by him through the abuse of his power. He knew he was loved, and felt ‘too-much-at-risk’ to figure out his own feelings (but he knew there was something), so he proceeded to derail Kotoko’s efforts. Dr. Chiba didn’t catch it, but I’ll call it: In Naoki’s case, “Trolling is a man’s love.”

Since Dr. Chiba analyzed historical dreams, I don’t see how she performed her intervention. It is interesting for me to speculate if Paprika herself entered the couple’s dream sphere and influenced their behavior consequently in any way. In any case, I look forward to finding Dr. Atsuko’s other cases. You never know whose dreams she’s also delved into.