Phil Zimbardo's Code Of Ethics

The code of ethics is a set of rules ensuring the safety of the participant, researcher and any animal involved. It covers aspect such as participant's rights, the moral obligation of the researcher and professional conduct. In today's modern society psychological research must comply with the code of ethics (ethical Guidelines). The first code of ethics in America was published in 1953 but was a continual work in progress (the first code, 2017). Although it had been introduced, ethical guidelines were still not obliged by or considered, and controversial experiments that would be seen as breaches today were, at the time, accepted as research being conducted. One of which being the Stanford Prison Experiment.
The Stanford prison experiment was conducted in 1971 by Phil Zimbardo to study the psychological effects of perceived power through prisoners and guards (Stanford Magazine - Article, 2017). Young healthy men, who were volunteers, were divided into 2 groups with a flip of a coin and placed into a mock prison environment. Contentious procedures took place to subject the prisoners into feeling emasculated and

This is so they can avoid the participant being placed under any risks of psychological or physical damage. Due to Zimbardo being present as a participant in the experiment (superintendent) it caused the researchers to lose control over it as they were oblivious to the issues occurring. Dr Zimbardo reported in his book/findings report "I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point -- that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist." (Dr. Zimbardo, 1971) this came about after being asked what the independent variable was by a researcher. The Stanford prison experiment ended due to the distressing wellbeing of the participant seen by Christina Maslach, who brought Zimbardo to his