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.
In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set out to conduct an experiment to observe behavior as well as obedience. In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, many dispute whether it was obedience or merely conforming to their predesigned social roles of guards and prisoners that transpired throughout the experiment. Initially, the experiment was meant to test the roles people play in prison environment; Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards, disposition, or had more to do with the prison environment. This phenomenon has been arguably known to possibly influencing the catastrophic similarities which occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.The
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).
The Stanford Prison Study The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by a team of researchers, led by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University, from August 14th to August 20th, 1971 (“Stanford prison experiment,” n.d.). 24 individuals were selected to play the roles of either prisoners or guards from a substantial group of 70 volunteers. All participants lacked a criminal background, weren’t suffering from psychological implications, and weren’t experiencing adverse medical issues. The experiment took place in a mock prison located in the basement of the Stanford Psychology building briefly after each individual was randomly assigned their role in the study.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a research study administered by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, which gathered twenty-four men to be put into a pseudo-jail to see the impacts of prison on the guards and inmates. Twelve of these volunteers were randomly selected to be inmates and the other twelve became guards. Not surprisingly, the inmates endured incredible torment and a few of them had psychological collapses due to severe emotional distress. The guards were consumed with their own power and felt little sympathy for the inmates that were under their care and stripped them, whipped them, dehumanized them. The research was expected to keep going for two weeks; however it went on for only six days due to the inmates encountering damaging levels
The “guard mentality” can create negative traits that lead to the inhumane treatment and abuse of prisoners. On the other hand, prisoners that act out in violence and brutality can be traced back to the being confined in a cell. Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo created a mock prison experiment to see how these hypotheses truly affected the guards and prisoners. The subjects for the experiment
Stanford Prison Experiment Props were used to perpetuate the guards and inmate’s roles and behaviors by giving the guards uniforms, mirror-reflecting sunglasses, whistles, handcuffs, and big Billy clubs and when they had them they felt they had the power. The glasses were mirror-reflecting and made the guards appear less human. They were given the title prison guard and they had control over the prisoners. Prisoners were stripped of their clothes and dignities. They were dressed in cheap smocks and allowed no underwear.
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
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.
Philip G. Zimbardo was a well-known psychology; he originated and initiated the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). The SPE was an experimental mock prison. Those who were involved in the experiment were Zimbardo, three graduate-student colleagues: W. Curis Banks, David Jaffe, and Craiy Haney. Along with 21 male college age students who volunteered to be the research subjects. Zimbardo(1973) expressed “We sought to understated more about the process by which people called “prisoners” lose their liberty, civil rights, independence and privacy , while those called “guards” gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling and managing the lives of their dependent charges.”
Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo in August 1971. During this experiment, Zimbardo and his colleagues created a prison atmosphere by using realistic methods. College students participated to either become prisoners or guards; they were used to see how people react in certain social situations where a person has more power than another. This experiment revealed how much people’s personalities change when given the opportunity to act superior over another person. This experiment began with the Palo Alto police arresting the group of college students who were the “prisoners.”
Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo questioned, “What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?” (Zimbardo, 1971) In 1971 a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment on the effects prison has on young males with the help of his colleague Stanley Milgram. They wanted to find out if the reports of brutality from guards was due to the way guards treated prisoners or the prison environment.
Zimbardo the main psychologist/researcher in this experiment advertised for volunteers to participate. Applicants and were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. The study involved 24 male college students (chosen from 75 volunteers) who were paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to their role. The prison simulation was kept as real as possible.
Major issues that had arisen because of the Stanford Experiment were also caused because of critical pieces of information that were left ignored following its termination. There is no overarching way to know whether the guards momentarily became evil or simply acted that way. If one person began to act in a cruel manner, other people may have followed their lead because it appeared they knew what to do and no one wanted to appear as an outcast. Either way, it still showed how people thought they should act when placed in a prison system. In many ways, Zimbardo failed to state how not all of the guards acted in such a crude manner.
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.
