Philp Zimbardo's Psychological Experiment

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Philp Zimbardo conducted one of the most infamous psychology experiment known today. He created an experiment on how individuals adapt to being in a relatively powerless situation. He published an ad looking for male college students for a psychology study of prison life. Students were to be paid $15-20 a day every 1-2 weeks. Zimbardo got the attention of more than seventy students. Within those male students Zimbardo and his researchers made sure all were mentally and physically healthy. They selected twenty-four students and randomly assigned them prisoner or guard.

Zimbardo told the guards to act like it was an actual prison. He wanted the guards to create an atmosphere were prisoners would feel powerless. Guards were told they could not physically harm the prisoners. On the first day, guards displayed no change in their actions or personality towards the prisoners. Zimbardo says in a cover story for Stanford’s Alumni, “The guards had this antiauthority mentality. They felt awkward in their uniforms. They didn't get into …show more content…

He was the prisons most abusive guard. He went into the experiment with his own plan to excite Zimbardo and his researchers. During the experiment Dave’s person started changing. He wanted to see how much the prisoners would endure before telling him to stop. Not one single guard told him to stop, they joined in on his actions. This is important because not only were the guards now acting more disciplined towards the prisoners, but prisoners started feeling like it was a real prison. Zimbardo and his researchers were completely drawn in. They stood there watching and didn’t take action to tell the guards that they went too far. It wasn’t until one of Zimbardo’s colleague asked him was the independent variable of the experiment that made Zimbardo realized how was no longer the researcher but the superintendent of the