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Stanford Prison Experiment Evil Vs Evil

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Stanford Prison Experiment: "Evil" by Nature vs. "Evil" by Circumstance?
Overview of the Experiment
The "Stanford Prison Experiment" was conducted by a psychologist at Stanford University known as Philip Zimbardo. The experiment itself was conducted in order to find out the effect of becoming a prison guard and being a prisoner from a psychological standpoint, and Zimbardo was interested in seeing how good people acted in an evil and oppressive regime. The test subjects voluntarily joined the experiment; the prison guards were paid a low sum of money for their participation, while the prisoners were undergraduates attending Stanford University. The experiment was meant to last for two weeks, although in the end it lasted for around 6 days because of the chaos that took place in the prison.
The chaos was initiated by a guard called Dave Eshelman. He had come to the conclusion that "this experiment must have been put together to prove a point about prisons being a cruel and inhumane place," and that he "would do his part" to help prove this point. He took the persona of a movie character, and whenever he interacted with the prisoners, he "made the decision that I [he] would be as intimidating, as cold, as cruel as possible" …show more content…

The prison guards had a set routine which they followed when bringing a new "inmate" to the prison. First of all, the prisoner was brought to the basement, and there they were supposedly deloused. The prison guards began exerting force and building a fear-based authoritative relationship with the prisoners by stripping them of their clothes during the delousing process and they began humiliating the prisoners, and this process was known as the "degradation process". The prisoner guards ridiculed the prisoners appearance, specifically their

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Second, The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study that was too inhumane to continue because of the behavior of the prison guards when handed with superiority and the mental breakdowns of the prisoners. E: “Now, you 'll all be given sunglasses and uniforms to give the prisoners a sense of a unified, singular authority… And from this point forward you should never refer to this as a study or experiment again,’’ (Dr. Phil Zimbardo).

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Zimbardo’s method of conducting The Stanford Prison Experiment is unethical for a plethora of reasons. First, the selection of guards, none of them have any prior training in correctional duties. Consequently, you can see the guards using Nazi strategies to enforce their version of prions standards. Second, the chain that is constantly attached to the inmate’s ankle to reinforce that there is no escape. Now, in real prisons guards are only allowed to connect items such as full body restraints, spit guards, mouth guards, wrist restraints, and ankle restraints to aid in the safety of the prisoner, surrounding prisoners, and guards.

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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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The Stanford Prison Experiment University (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973). Haney and associates created a functional prison simulation in which healthy, psychologically normal male college students were assigned to role as prisoners and guards. All subjects signed contracts that included instructions about prisoner and guard roles for the planned two-week experiment. Guards were given minimal instructions, most notably that physical aggression or physical punishment of prisoners were prohibited. The researchers planned to study how both guards and prisoners reacted their roles, but guards were led to believe that the purpose of the experiment was to study prisoners..

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This connects to the idea of guards having the capability of turning evil through an atmosphere of the prison environment where they can turn evil and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners. From the article, "Stanford Prison Experiment," by Saul McLeod, he explained that the evil tactics that were made by the guards were from the atmosphere of the prison environment because the norm for a prison guard is to act tough and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners when assigning punishments. He also added that guards acted this way because they lost their sense of personal identity when they dressed up as a guard, which can show they may have believed that they were actual guards and the experiment was real, which might’ve triggered their dark side with harsh punishments. Therefore, losing their personal identity in a prison environment may have been the factor where they triggered their evil side during the prison

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The Stanford Prison Experiment What happens when good people turn evil? That was the question asked when Dr. Philip Zimbardo wanted to conduct a new experiment about just that. He wanted to show the world just how crazy people can get while given roles of authority. Never in a million years though, did he think that this study could become one of the most iconic experiments ever.

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Stanford Prison: The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment conducted at Stanford University where a mock prison was set up. Normal healthy men were split into groups of the guards and the prisoners. The two different groups conformed to their role very quickly, which resulted in physical and verbal abuse by the guards and a sense of weakness in the prisoners. This experiment was unethical because it led to lasting emotional trauma in many of the prisoners. Also Zimbaro, the leader of the experiment, found it impossible to stay neutral during the

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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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Instead when they were asked who they were they simply answered with ID numbers that were assigned to them. As the experiment went on the guards beat the prisoners, sprayed them with fire extinguishers, and striped the prisoners naked and harassed them. They were not being told to do this, but within the seven days of the experiment they began to abuse their power and inflict evil upon the prisoners. A member of the experiment says, “It’s easy for you to say, 'Oh, I wouldn't have acted that way, but you don't know. That's - that's the truth.

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Zimbardo took part in the experiment as the prison supervisor. If this were a truly thought-through experiment, he would have had no part in the experiment rather than simply reviewing and analyzing the results. Rather, he overlooked many issues within the makeshift prison, such as disputes, and encouraged them to perform as he wanted. In “The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment”, it was stated that Zimbardo’s interpretation of events was far too shaped by his expectations, he wanted them to turn on each other just because they had new roles with more or less power than they had before. He was searching far too hard for results, which led to the ‘experiment’ failure.

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In the video “The Stanford Prison Experiment (Part 2)” Michale Steven concluded: “We brought in people who had very different personalities that those Zimbardo chose. We put them in a situation that did not demand things from them and they behaved accordingly to that personality” (30:00-30:10). This exhibited an experiment that is a development of the original “Stanford Prison Experiment” with improved techniques. It was an experiment in which Steve selected participants who scored high in morals from numerous personality tests and placed them in a dark room where they couldn't see the other participants. And had them attempt to complete a puzzle and give them the option to play an alarming sound for the other participants that didn’t exist which they had control of the volume.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological experiment to see what would happen when good people were put into evil environments. The participants were male college students who were randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners. The objective of the experiment was to see what would happen when good people are placed into horrible places. Also, if people not inor with less authority would stand up to those in more authority. My claim is that the Stanford Prison Experiment proves that good people can be easily corrupted by power.

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1114 Words | 5 Pages

Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and

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They were stripped naked and had all their personal possessions removed. They were only given a prison dress and has a chain on their right foot. On the other hand, the guards wore identical khakis. They were instructed to do whatever they thought is right to maintain law and order in the prison. But they are not given a permission to abuse the prisoners physically.

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As stated in the name of the actual experiment, it was a simulation of how it was like to be imprisoned. The participants were 24 college students. The

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