The Stanford prison experiment was a study conducted in 1971 that consisted of 22 subjects, half of which were assigned to be “prisoners”, and the other half assigned to be “guards” in a fake prison. (Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). The original purpose of the study was to provide insight into how the United States prison system functions and the psychological effects of being an inmate in a prison. The study also sought to explain the “deplorable condition of our penal system and its dehumanizing effects on prisoners and guards”. (Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). As noted in the introduction of the study, one possible explanation for this is that either prisoners, guards, or both are just bad or evil people who deserve to be locked up or deal with people that are locked up. This is not the case, however. The only hypothesis brought forth by the author of the study was that assigning people to be either guards or prisoners would drastically change their psychological outlook. (Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). …show more content…
(Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). There were originally 75 people that responded to the newspaper ad for the study, and each was subjected to numerous psychological tests to find the most “normal” people. The 22 subjects were then divided in two groups, randomly, with one group being guards and the other prisoners. One guard did drop out right before the study began, so when the study started there were only 10 guards. The participants were not told specifically what the study was for, but the guards were interviewed and they thought it was to study prisoner behavior. (Haney, Banks & Zimbardo,