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Stanford Prison Experiment By Philip Zimbardo

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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. Many agree that it caused a lot of ethical issues. Overwhelming evidence proves that even by the second day things started to go down hill. The prisoners were beginning to feel very psychologically traumatized. Many have even admitted to serious physical beaten. Finally, riots started to break out due to severe psychological stress. Things started to go really unravel when people didn't know how to react to these physical violences. They knew they were volunteering for an experiment as a mock prison. Yet, at the same time they were treated in a way that isn't morally correct. …show more content…

Zimbardo and his fellow researchers failed to respect the rights of their participants by failing to tell them exactly what they were getting themselves into. Better safeguards should have been put in place to protect the participants from potential risks. Neutral observers should also have been present at all times to prevent the experiment from getting out of hand as it so clearly did do. However, despite the storm of criticism faced by Zimbardo in the wake of his controversial prison experiment, some of the lessons learned were later applied to real life prison situations. In the positive side the stanford prison experiment has some

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Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo

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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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Compare And Contrast Stanford Prison Experiment And Philip Zimbardo

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In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set out to conduct an experiment to observe behavior as well as obedience. In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, many dispute whether it was obedience or merely conforming to their predesigned social roles of guards and prisoners that transpired throughout the experiment. Initially, the experiment was meant to test the roles people play in prison environment; Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards, disposition, or had more to do with the prison environment. This phenomenon has been arguably known to possibly influencing the catastrophic similarities which occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.The

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Essay Comparing The Stanford Prison Experiment And Philip Zimbardo

1182 Words | 5 Pages

The Stanford Prison Experiment shows people who are put into positions that cause them to act differently from themselves. 12 people are selected for an experiment and randomly split into two groups: 3 guards and 9 prisoners, and they dress them like their roles and give them the gadgets they normally use in that role. “Within a very short time, both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles, with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily. Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it.

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Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a research study administered by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, which gathered twenty-four men to be put into a pseudo-jail to see the impacts of prison on the guards and inmates. Twelve of these volunteers were randomly selected to be inmates and the other twelve became guards. Not surprisingly, the inmates endured incredible torment and a few of them had psychological collapses due to severe emotional distress. The guards were consumed with their own power and felt little sympathy for the inmates that were under their care and stripped them, whipped them, dehumanized them. The research was expected to keep going for two weeks; however it went on for only six days due to the inmates encountering damaging levels

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Stanford Prison Experiment Essay

458 Words | 2 Pages

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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Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo

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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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Stanford Prison Experiment By Philip Zimbardo

843 Words | 4 Pages

In 1973, a psychological experiment was orchestrated and performed by the professor of Psychology at Stanford University by the name of Phillip K. Zimbardo. This experiment was deemed unethical on many levels by countless people around the world. It raised questions about the ability of people who were forced to exist in oppressive or obedient roles and was known as The Stanford Prison Experiment. Philip Zimbardo began to research how prisoners and guards assume obedient and authoritative roles. The so called prisoners were acquired through an advertisement placed in a local newspaper.

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Phillip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment

458 Words | 2 Pages

Since the guards were not able to commit any physical harm, they decided to do psychological and emotional harm. This experiment could have gone much better and more fluid if they didn’t allow the guards to humiliate and break the inmates down. The guards had all the power they wanted because the warden was on their side. I honestly believe that the benefits of this experiment outweighed the costs. We learned from this experiment how to not treat people during

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Stanford Prison Experiment Zimbardo

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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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The Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo's Ethical Paradigm

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This experiment fits into Kidder’s ethical dilemma paradigms of short-term vs long-term. In fact, Zimbardo choose the long term effects of his experiment over the short term effects of it. The Stanford prison experiment had a short-term effect on the university students that could not bear the prison life for long and the prison was ended after 6 days only. The long hours of imprisonment revealed that the students had become depressed while the guards had already become cruel at their maximum. The prisoners were humiliated and embarrassed by the guards.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment That Was Run In 1971 By Professor Philip Zimbardo

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The Stanford Prison Study I would like to discuss the Stanford Prison Experiment that was run in 1971 by Professor Philip Zimbardo. The aim of this prison experiment is to study the psychology of humans such as ethics, the psychological impacts of authority, and social expectations (Leithead, 2011). This experiment studied the situations of the volunteers who acted like prisoners and guards. But, the prison experiment shut down in just six days although they supposed two weeks. The reason is that the volunteers who acted like prisoners and guards suffered from mental attacks such as some suffered from mental breakdowns and some feel like sadism, and the experiment was rapidly out of control (Leithead, 2011).

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Essay On Stanford Prison Experiment

599 Words | 3 Pages

They also concluded that the environment of the prison played a vital role in the way the guards treated the prisoners. It is believed that this experiment changed the way some U.S. prisons are

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Phil Zimbardo's Code Of Ethics

786 Words | 4 Pages

This is so they can avoid the participant being placed under any risks of psychological or physical damage. Due to Zimbardo being present as a participant in the experiment (superintendent) it caused the researchers to lose control over it as they were oblivious to the issues occurring. Dr Zimbardo reported in his book/findings report "I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point -- that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist." (Dr. Zimbardo, 1971) this came about after being asked what the independent variable was by a researcher. The Stanford prison experiment ended due to the distressing wellbeing of the participant seen by Christina Maslach, who brought Zimbardo to his

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Stanford Prison Experiment Literature Review

1129 Words | 5 Pages

Unit 1 Written Assignment Literature Review of article on Standard Prison Experiment Introduction This article concerns the Stanford Prison experiment carried out in 1971 at Stanford University. The experiment commenced on August 14, and was stopped after only six days. It is one of the most noted psychological experiments on authority versus subordinates. The studies which emerged from this have been of interest to those in prison and military fields due to its focus on the psychology associated with authority.

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Stanford Prison Experiment Case Study

779 Words | 4 Pages

While the test subjects did in fact consent to the experiment via documents, they developed this false understanding through the experiment that they could not leave at any time, that “there was no way out”. During this time period, there were no existing laws that this experiment violated but it did pave the way for several to be introduced. For example, in the consent form it stated that the prisoners would not experience physical harm, but several days later they were brutally beaten by the guards. A few scenarios such as this one would be considered illegal with today’s legal system. One law that was created after this required federal prisons to separate minors awaiting trial from adults to avoid them suffering from abuse.

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