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Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment

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The official definition of an experiment is a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact. While the Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to be a psychological experiment, which took place in a mock prison, however, it fell extremely short of being a tangible scientific experiment. There was no control group, no substantial hypothesis, and fell short of demonstrating any facts; the experiment took place simply because Dr. Zimbardo got an idea based on the Holocaust. Although the Stanford Prison Experiment was intended to be an experiment, it became similar to a simulation due to the experiment's constituents, higher powers pushing constituents to act a certain way, and the head experimenter. …show more content…

Zimbardo took part in the experiment as the prison supervisor. If this were a truly thought-through experiment, he would have had no part in the experiment rather than simply reviewing and analyzing the results. Rather, he overlooked many issues within the makeshift prison, such as disputes, and encouraged them to perform as he wanted. In “The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment”, it was stated that Zimbardo’s interpretation of events was far too shaped by his expectations, he wanted them to turn on each other just because they had new roles with more or less power than they had before. He was searching far too hard for results, which led to the ‘experiment’ failure. While Zimbardo became invoked in the experiment and played his role, he let the neglect take place. He then later realized how wrong the whole experiment was because of an outside person, and only then did he make plans to end the experiment. “By the time Christina intervened, it was the middle of the night, so I had to make plans to terminate the next morning,” (314). He also went on to see the reality of what his experiment had done, and what kind of subject his experiment had created. “When I went back down to the basement, I witnessed the final scene of depravity, the ‘camel humping’ episode. I was so glad that it would be the last such abuse I would see or be responsible for,” (314). This just proved how blinded Zimbardo was by results, which led to such terrible neglect of subjects. If he had realized how result-obsessive he was sooner, maybe the experiment may not have continued this long, or maybe the subjects would have acted

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The Stanford prison experiment was led by Philip Zimbardo with the purpose of studying the psychological effects of being a prisoner and a prison guard. The participants of the research study were male college students. Once selected, a coin toss determined which males would be prisoners and prison guards. The experiment took place at Stanford University, where a mock prison was crafted. Zimbardo acted as the warden or superintendent of the mock prison.

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In the article of “The Perils of Obedience”, written by Stanley Milgram, the experimenter explains that the experiment is to see how far a person could hurt a victim in a situation where he is ordered to do so. Also, in the article “The Stanford Prison

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In summary, the purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to demonstrate that powerful situational forces, much like Abu Ghraib, could over-ride individual dispositions and choices, leading good people to do bad things simply because of the role they found themselves

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“Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, exacerbated by the guards' refusal to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate anywhere but in a bucket placed in their cell” (“Stanford Prison Experiment,” n.d.). The guards utilized various punishments including disallowing the cellmates to empty their sanitation buckets, demanding them to sleep on the concrete, and requiring certain prisoners to be naked. As the experiment continued, several guards became increasingly merciless, and approximately one-third displayed sadistic tendencies (“Stanford prison experiment,” n.d.). The majority of the guards were infuriated after the experiment concluded after only 6 days. Zimbardo mentioned his own immersion in the

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them binary through the authority implied by the direct guard inmate relationship. In quiet rage, the purpose of the experiment was to show what an increase in power and status can do to a person. Essentially Zimbardo's power and authority (being the phycologist) led him to overlooking horrible situations and allowing them to take place. In fact, his own experiment even tricked him. Look at all the police brutality and all the violence in the prisons.

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Zimbardo and his fellow researchers failed to respect the rights of their participants by failing to tell them exactly what they were getting themselves into. Better safeguards should have been put in place to protect the participants from potential risks. Neutral observers should also have been present at all times to prevent the experiment from getting out of hand as it so clearly did do. However, despite the storm of criticism faced by Zimbardo in the wake of his controversial prison experiment, some of the lessons learned were later applied to real life prison situations. In the positive side the stanford prison experiment has some

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The guards were instructed to maintain order anyway they wanted without using physical violence. Zimbardo wanted the guards to seem intimidating while the prisoners were made to look inferior and were to be referred to with their ID number only. After the prisoners were assigned their roles and the guards took their post was the effect of the experiment finally setting in. On the morning of the second day the prisoners began to rebel against the guards by ripping off their ID numbers and barring the doors while taunting the guards. This event was the first step down the slippery slope that would follow.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most infamous and controversial psychological experiments to ever take place to this day. In 1971, Phillip Zimbardo created an experiment that tested the changes one endures when they have to adapt in a prison environment and provided an explanation for the dehumanizing effects of the penile system. 24, college-aged, men were chosen to participate in the 2 week long experiment by flipping a coin to decide whether they’re given the role of prisoner or guard. After their roles were determined, they were given uniforms, cells, identification numbers, etc. Little did he know that the results of this experiment would give some of the most ethically challenged results of time.

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Situational effects and personality come into conflict when discussing behavior. Personality is someone’s “usual pattern of behavior, feelings, and thoughts” (Twenge, 2017, p.20). It remains constant throughout different situations, but some situations can be stressful enough to make a person act out of character. The transition between a person’s normal personality and behavior to a more evil, sinister behavior fascinates a man named Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the infamous Zimbardo Prison Experiment, or Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Zimbardo is an American psychologist at Stanford University and the mastermind behind the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (The Story).

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On day six Zimbardo and Milgram decided to conclude the experiment. Zimbardo originally intended to explore how prisoners adapt to powerlessness, but he has contended that the experiment demonstrates how swiftly arbitrary assignment of power can lead to abuse. (Maher, The anatomy of obedience. P. 408) Once the experiment was completed Zimbardo and Milgram concluded that generally people will conform to the roles they are told to play.

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Instead when they were asked who they were they simply answered with ID numbers that were assigned to them. As the experiment went on the guards beat the prisoners, sprayed them with fire extinguishers, and striped the prisoners naked and harassed them. They were not being told to do this, but within the seven days of the experiment they began to abuse their power and inflict evil upon the prisoners. A member of the experiment says, “It’s easy for you to say, 'Oh, I wouldn't have acted that way, but you don't know. That's - that's the truth.

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He may have been so focused on seeing how the guards treated their prisoners that he totally missed other big findings in the experiment. The participants who were guards also had their experiences impacted by Zimbardo. Since Zimbardo told them how to behave in the study, they felt like they had to comply and do what they were told. This is called demand characteristics, where participants may behave in ways they think are expected of them responding to Subtle or unintentional cues from experimenters(Buvinger, 2023). Because of demand characteristics, the participants did not truly act how they would which deems the results invalid.

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I read the Stanford prison experiment, which I thought was good because it shed some light on a critical aspect of human psychology, namely the power of authority. This study was a famous psychological experiment conducted in 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. It aimed to investigate the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or a guard by randomly assigning 24 male participants to play one of these two roles in a simulated prison environment. However, the study quickly escalated and the guards became abusive towards the prisoners, who began to exhibit signs of extreme stress and psychological distress. The study was stopped after only 6 days, instead of its planned 2-week duration, due to the unethical and harmful behavior that had

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The Stanford prison study proved to be the harmful of the two experiment. This was a bizzar study involving human beings. Normal human beings after undergoing this experiement became cruel. The studenst participating in the experiement were not educated on the after effects.

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Stanford Experiment: Unethical or Not Stanford Prison Experiment is a popular experiment among social science researchers. In 1973, a psychologist named Dr. Philip Zimbardo wants to find out what are the factors that cause reported brutalities among guards in American prisons. His aim was to know whether those reported brutalities were because of the personalities of the guards or the prison environment. However, during the experiment, things get muddled unexpectedly. The experiment became controversial since it violates some ethical standards while doing the research.

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