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Psychological Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment By Zimbardo

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study conducted to find out the effects of people assimilating into the roles that they are assigned as well as to find out the effects of imprisonment on the human psyche, even if it was only for a week. The people chosen to participate in the experiment were chosen very carefully; Zimbardo, the man who designed the experiment, made sure that the participants were healthy and had no psychological issues that would mar the results of the experiment or add too many confounding variables to the mix. He randomly split the participants into two groups, 9 guards and 9 prisoners with 3 alternates for each group making a total of 24 people. He kept them in a “prison” and allowed them to have full autonomy over what happened during the experiment. …show more content…

By the second day the prisoners became non responsive and refused to adhere to the rules set down by the guards, and this set off a chain reaction where the prisoners began to rebel more and more to the guards. The guards in turn became more and more sadistic and cruel to the prisoners in an attempt to quell this perceived rebellion. The regular students who were picked for this experiment turned into cruel savages, both from the prisoners side and the guards side. The experiment had to be ended early, because the guards were being so cruel to the prisoners that it became a liability for Zimbardo. By the end of the experiment, most of the prisoners truly felt like they were actually prisoners, and the guards felt like they were actually guards assuming the identities that they had been

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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.

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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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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.

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While "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara accurately represents African American culture and vocabulary, the critical article by Janet Ruth Heller primarily focuses on race and culture rather than poverty and socioeconomic inequality, the theme of "The Lesson. " The article by Heller does not delve into the main point of the short story (Heller). The article by Heller talks about using African American slang and vernacular to make the story more relatable to an African American's experience. " The Lesson's" main point is to show the children's poverty and how differently they live compared to their wealthy white counterparts. Although the critical article fails to capture the main idea, "The Lesson" song for the Literature Project by Molly Jacobs, a jazz improv, effectively captures the pride in African American heritage

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Before the experiment began, all participants went through a psychological evaluation to make sure they were of sound mind (Onishi & Herbert, 2016). Once the experiment began the “prisoners” were arrested and taken to a simulated prison where they were stripped searched and demoralized. During the 6 days that the study lasted, conduct between both sides, prisoners and guards, was less than expectable. Both sides “acted as though a punishment was justified as an acceptable response to a breach of the rules” (Onishi & Herbert, 2016), rules that were vaguely explained.

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The Stanford prison experiment, was an attempt on investigating the psychological effects of perceived power. Mainly focusing on the struggles between the prisoners and the prison officers. It was conducted in Stanford University from August 14 to 20, 1971, by a research group led by Philip Zimbardo. He was very interested in knowing whether the brutality reported among the guards in most American prisoners was due to the cruelty of the personalities of the guards. As I was reading about the Stanford prison experiment I realized it was a very controversial issue.

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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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843 Words | 4 Pages

Over the course of the experiment, contradictive psychological relations were established between the prisoners and guards. The prisoners began to lose hope and realized that there was no way out. They felt that it is better to do exactly what the guards told them to do. On the other hand, guards had to be authoritative to keep the prisoners and the prison in order. A number of the guards were aggressive and brutal towards the prisoners while a few were more sympathetic, and occasionally did favors for the

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687 Words | 3 Pages

The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971 focused on the effects that an “evil” place could have on a good person. The goal of this experiment was to find out when good people are put in an evil place, will good win over evil? Or will evil rise above the good? From the experiment, having good people in an evil place and being put in harsh situations effected the way that the prisoners and guards acted. Guards who were more lenient toward the prisoner did not say anything to the guards who were stricter in their treatment of the prisoners. The prisoners also started to act out, and sometimes would single out the actions of other prisoners as a way to protect themselves from the harsh guards.

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The guards were cruel and even made the prisoners do menial tasks. The prisoners also broke and could no longer control their emotions, some prisoners also went into depression. For example, one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. But, the experiment had long term effects that Zimbardo thought to be superior to the short-term effects, hence he decided to continue the experiment. Zimbardo chose to get the long-term effects instead of worrying about the short-term effects.

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There was some confidentiality among the volunteers because they were given ID numbers and were not allowed to use their names and the guards were addressed as just that. The anonymity and confidentiality of the experiment didn't exist because the volunteers were arrested outside their homes and the researchers knew the selected men. Zimbardo's experiment is quasi and observational with the means of discovering how social influence affects people in a prison like environment. Each participant was given a role and some adapted quickly and took it seriously especially when given the power of

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826 Words | 4 Pages

Specifically, Zimbardo should have either created rules prior to the experiment, or stepped in once the guards began to starve, isolate, and sleep deprive prisoners. While Zimbardo assigned prisoners with numbers, and used none of their names, he still broke the ethical guidelines of confidentiality. It is vital to keep all data and information gathered from participants anonymous, so as not to affect their lives outside of the study (Myers & DeWall 2019). While he did not reveal their names or identifying information, he still publicly arrested the prisoners for anyone to see, such as neighbors, family, or any passersby (Mourinho335, Youtube, 2023). He obtained real police officers to question, cuff, and drive to the Stanford Psychology Building with the participants.

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599 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1415 Words | 6 Pages

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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1110 Words | 5 Pages

The Stanford Prison Study The Stanford Prison study was not only known to be a very controversial study but also proof of a common psychological theory at the time. The study aimed to evaluate the dispositional hypothesis, an ideology that tried to explain the appalling conditions of a prison environment and the negatively affected behavior and mindset of inmates and guards. This hypothesis stated that the “state of the social institution of prison is due to the ‘nature’ of the people who administer it, or the ‘nature’ of the people who populate it, or both,” (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973, pg. 2). Thus, to analytically evaluate this theory, researchers had to observe the pattern of behavior that resulted from a prison-like setting.

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