Multimedia Resources

Video Links

Milgram experiment on obedience
This Khan Academy video explores the lasting legacy of the Milgram Experiment.

Role strain and role conflict
This video provides a clear and concise discussion on “role strain” and “role conflict.”

Audio Links

This American Life 318: With Great Power
This episode is focused on stories of power and responsibility. The first act is a story of a woman who possessed information that could free an innocent man from prison. The second act is the story of a mother and daughter in a family who wished for years they could do something to stop their neighbor from all kinds of shocking behavior. Suddenly they get the power to decisively change things forever and then they have to decide whether they will.

This American Life 378: This I used to believe
This program is a compilation of stories about people forced to let go of their firmly held beliefs. For example, when the daughter of a pro-choice activist concludes that abortion is murder, her mother goes to extraordinary lengths to persuade her daughter to switch sides. An additional example shows us that after a woman loses her faith, a football coach--who she's never met--tries to restore it.

Web Links

Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI)
Sociologists who work from the symbolic interactionist perspective have long had their own professional association, the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI).

American Anthropology Association (AAA)
Anthropology is a social science related to Sociology and is defined as the study of humankind, from its beginnings millions of years ago to the present day. The American Anthropology Association (AAA) has two purposes including to advance anthropology as a science that studies humankind in all its aspects, through archeological, biological, ethnological, and linguistic research and to further the professional interests of American anthropologists, including the dissemination of anthropological knowledge and its use to solve human problems. 

The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment Web site features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions the researchers posed in a dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University (self-characterization).