Stanford Prison Experiment Ethical Research

483 Words2 Pages

By far the most unethical experiment from all the 10 presented, I personally considered it to be The Stanford Prison Experiment. Not only lack of compliance with most of the characteristics that makes an experiment an Ethical Research Project using human participants listed in Module 2.3 (n.d), but it breaks the very human law of respect for each other and the right to being treated with respect. It totally fails in regards to the fact that the experimenter did not treat the participant with concern and respect and that research experience was not a pleasant and informative one whatsoever. I was shocked to learn that an experiment like this was at some point permitted even back in 1971. Regardless that this experiment took place prior to the National Research Act of 1974, it is hard to believe that social psychologists could plan and put in action an experiment that was obviously causing extraordinary psychological harm to all the participants without regard of their role as prisoner …show more content…

In addition, the experiment failed in providing the participants with the free will of participating or not. The very short video presents many occasions where the prisoner participants expressed their decision of ‘wanting out’ of the experiment and even having emotional breakdown, nonetheless this was not enough for the experimenters to let them go or abort the