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Philip Zimbardo Experiment

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South Bronx, New York City is where it really all started. Phillip Zimbardo – born in the inner city ghetto of New York City - would play in the streets as a child with his friends, when police cars would drive up and seize their toys. On one account they had managed to hide their toys from the police before they arrived, but an officer grabbed Phillip Zimbardo, pressed him against the cop car, demanding to know the location of their toys. Finally Zimbardo gave in, but since that day, he’s never trusted a man in uniform again. His personal encounters with law enforcement officers and growing in up in a ghetto area, have led him to develop an interest in social human behavior (Phillip, 2007). The Stanford experiment was about how the power of an institution affects an individual's behavior. The results mirror world events such as the Rwandan genocide, and the Abu Ghraib prison. The experiment began on a Sunday evening, August 14, 1971. To make sure the study seemed relatively real Zimbardo transformed part of the basement offices at Stanford University into a prison-like-environment. He put out an …show more content…

If the coin landed on heads they would be a guard, and if it landed on tails they would be a prisoner (Phillip, 2007). There was no physical or mental distinction that differentiated them to be a guard or prisoner. The Stanford Experiment shows that any good person can be a perpetuator of evil. Given the situation, it can bring out the worst of people. Sometimes a situation or environment can pull more weight than our own morals. We human beings can be evil, corrupt, and immoral. On the other hand we can ask ourselves, just how much will we let a situation affect us? As you look deeper into this study, you now know what humans are capable of. Everyone is capable of good and bad. We can choose to let the situation bring out the worst in us or the best of us. We can be heroes or villains. Which one will you

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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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This experiment demonstrated that being placed in a position of power, the people started to act in a way that they would normally not act. The prisoners, because they were in a situation that they had no control over became

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study that took place at Stanford University in 1971. It studied the psychological effects of going to prison or becoming a prison guard. Researchers set out to find college students to participate and soon had many willing to take part. To begin, the students were separate into two groups, prisoners and prison guards. Philip Zimbardo, lead researcher and “prison superintendent” told the guards to take the experiment seriously and take on a real prison guard persona.

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The experiment I chose to research was the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo in 1971. Zimbardo wanted to figure out if the brutality in prison was due to the guards or the prisoners. He asked questions such as dose “…the institutional roles of guard and prisoner embitter and harden even compassionate people.” He wanted to know if the people that are within the prison system make the prison violent or dose the prison make these people violent. Zimbardo conducted in experiment where male college students volunteered to play prison in a makeshift prison in the basement of the Stanford phycology department.

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Zimbardo’s 1971 life experiment, which aimed to investigate how people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a simulated prison scenario, crossed many ethical boundaries. An example of this was the presence of harm throughout the experiment inflicted on the prisoners. Various degrees of physical and psychological harm were imposed upon the ten students. This included beatings, harassment, and torment from the guards, which resulted in emotional distress. Another aspect of this was that the consent form signed by the participants stated they would not be physically harmed.

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In 1971 at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo conducted the very famous prison study. In this experiment 24 boys were chosen to be split up into the rules of prisoners and guards. The experiment was set up to study how people conformed to their rules in a prison setting. During the first day, the students had trouble fitting into their initial rules, but by day two there was prisoner rebellion. The guards were not allowed to physically harm the prisoners, so they used more of a psychological punishment.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment was set up by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. The goal of the experiment was to study how being a prisoner or prisoner guard affects a person psychologically. The study was scheduled to last two weeks, but it was ended early due to how the prisoners and guards were reacting to their roles. Many men felt as if the experiment felt like real life and were struggling with internal feelings towards themselves.

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