Stanford Prison Experiment Evil Vs Evil

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"

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