Review Of Website Activity 4: Stanford Prison Experiment

Kerwin Pasia
PSY-359 Social Psychology
November 16, 2014
Dr. Tina Ayers

Website Activity 4: Stanford Prison Experiment
In the Stanford Prison Experiment, a test is done upon the morality of human beings to see how the behavior of people are like when they are given complete power and authority and how people react when they are imprisoned and expected to abide by the demands of complete authority. Society has become accustomed to police enforcement. Being a form of authority, people perceive it just or as expected actions in response to criminal activities. Police officers are perceived as enforcers of the law and also the ones who protect society. When they carry out their line of duty, it is for the sake of the safety upon society, ensuring

For example, the guards punished Prisoner 416 by placing him into a place of solitary confinement called “the hole” when he went on a hunger strike and refused to eat his sausages. As a result for having poor behavior, the other prisoners were told to bang at the closet door and shout at Prisoner 416. From what can be seen from all of this, the “bad guards” became increasingly sadistic and overpowering due to this act and other torturing situations. On the other hand, the good guards appeared to have some fear objecting towards the bad guards due to the sadistic behavior they openly had towards the prisoners. It is like as if the good guards may have grown a fear of being degraded almost equivalent to that of a prisoner if they were to oppose against a sadistic guard. In other words, rather than opposing their cruel demands, it was much easier for them to follow and stand alongside with the bad

The reason for this is because in comparison to the middle-class, kids from urban areas probably have to tolerate and deal with some forms of abuse more than them. However, they are still very human and some probably would have broken down emotionally. However, they might have lasted longer compared to the middle-class. There would also be less break downs. Women would probably have similar behaviors to the boys in this experiment. Between them, they might have had a sustaining bond. However, depending on how they tolerate abuse, which nowadays may not be as harsh back then when the status of women was once diminished, they probably would have tolerated it similarly to the boys of the middle-class. Women may be used to being treated better just because they are women. But due to this, they might not last as long like the boys of the middle-class. On the other hand, they would have lasted just as long as the middle-class kids if they were similarly treated like the boys before the