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Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo

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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. Within 24 hours of the experiment, the prison guards began to humiliate and mentally abuse the prisoners. The prison guards were given little instructions about how to treat the prisoners, except that there was not to be any physical force used on the prisoners. The lack of instructions that
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In the article “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Saul Mcleod it takes the reader through the process of an experiment by the University of Stanford were they got a group of people and split them up into to groups one group of people were guards and the other group of people were the prisoners, now in the experiment the guards were in charge of the prisoners, the prisoners relied on the guards for everything whether it be food or water or even a new set of clothes but as the experiment went on the guard abused their power making prisoners do miniscule task such as clean toilets with toothbrushes re make their beds after they had just been made and other thing, is is an example of the guards having to much power and they abused it at their

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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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Second, The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study that was too inhumane to continue because of the behavior of the prison guards when handed with superiority and the mental breakdowns of the prisoners. E: “Now, you 'll all be given sunglasses and uniforms to give the prisoners a sense of a unified, singular authority… And from this point forward you should never refer to this as a study or experiment again,’’ (Dr. Phil Zimbardo).

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Given positions of control, the guards started to use their power in degrading ways. To establish power over the captives, they used a variety of strategies, including physical punishment, psychological blackmail, and verbal abuse. On the other hand, the inmates were stripped of their uniqueness, turned into dehumanized objects, humiliated, treated poorly, and made helpless. Another important point made by Zimbardo's experiment was the effect of deindividuation and responsibility dispersal on the onset of prison violence. The guards' feeling of personal responsibility was diminished by their uniforms and masks, allowing them to act aggressively and abusively in ways they otherwise might not have.

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The experiment took place at Stanford University in August of 1971 in the basement of the psychology department. The Stanford prison experiment wanted to explore the adverse effects that oppression from prison guards would have on

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810 Words | 4 Pages

This experiment was conducted in Stanford University by Dr. Zimbardo. During this two week long session, Dr. Zimbardo had several volunteers agree to act as prisoners and as prison guards. The prisoners were told to wait in their houses while the guards were to set up the mock prison, a tactic used by Dr. Zimbardo to make them fit into their roles more. The official police apprehended the students assigned to the role of prisoner from their homes, took mug shots, fingerprinted them, and gave them dirty prison uniforms. The guards were given clean guard uniforms, sunglasses, and billy clubs borrowed from the police.

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In the six days that the experiment ran they saw the personalities that the prisoner and prison guards took.

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They also concluded that the environment of the prison played a vital role in the way the guards treated the prisoners. It is believed that this experiment changed the way some U.S. prisons are

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Zimbardo would then go out of his way to have kind,intelligent, and compassionate individuals try out for his experiment, when all participants were accounted for, he appointed half the participants as prisoners and half as guards, appointing himself as the warden (The Stanford Prison Experiment). He then allowed these guards to do whatever they pleased, except for physically abuse the participants. To his shock he found that all his once kind, compassionate participants were becoming into ravenous monsters that had no idea of the true damage they were causing to the other participants, Zimbardo himself began to feel these effects. Zimbardo ended the experiment early due to these effects and the mental well being of the participants being in jeopardy . When interviewing the participants he found, that these guards did truly feel remorse, but knew they had to please the higher officials in order to feel accomplished (The Stanford Prison Experiment).

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Unit 1 Written Assignment Literature Review of article on Standard Prison Experiment Introduction This article concerns the Stanford Prison experiment carried out in 1971 at Stanford University. The experiment commenced on August 14, and was stopped after only six days. It is one of the most noted psychological experiments on authority versus subordinates. The studies which emerged from this have been of interest to those in prison and military fields due to its focus on the psychology associated with authority.

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One of the most infamous experiments conducted in the history of psychology was the Stanford Prison Experiment. The main objective of this experiment was to see what effects would occur when a psychological experiment into human nature was performed. As I read through the material provided, I noticed that my thoughts on the matter were similar to many; that it was a complete failure as a scientific research project. However, his findings did provide us with something much more important that is still being talked about today; insight into human psychology and social behavior.

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Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and

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Another thing that makes this experiment beautiful is that it can help the police and military offices to train their people in coping the stress of being imprisoned among the prisoners. It would help them to know how that prison environment has a great factor in creating brutal behavior among the

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As stated in the introducing paragraph, this was a real-life experiment conducted by a psychology professor, Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his team of graduate students. They built their own version of a prison in the lower levels on one of the buildings on campus. Converting the offices into cells for the prisoners to sleep in. The goal of the experiment was to record the behavioral components, the way the prisoners react to the conditions and treatment by the guards, and the biological components of the experiment, how the prisoners are affected mentally and physically or how they are changed on a psychological level. This experiment generally focuses on the relationship between the guards and the prisoners to determine the psychological effects prison has on the human psyche and how it transforms their perception of what society used to be like and changes it into this harsh, unforgiving reality that no longer abides by the general societal structure they were accustomed to.

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937 Words | 4 Pages

The experiment mainly focused on the participants appearance, for example prisoners were dressed into prison clothes for feeling more demeaned and humiliated, however at the same time guards were dressed into like real guards with sunglasses for appearing more detached and less humane. The results were terrifying because the guards took the matter seriously and sometimes harassed the prisoners with the help pf physical punishment, or even

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