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Stanford Prison Experiment Philip G Zimbardo

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Obedience and individuality must have a balance in order for a society to function alls well. According to head researcher and acting warden, Philip G. Zimbardo, the main purpose of The Stanford Prison Experiment would be to study and to understand the roles people develop in prison. In order to discover the roles that humans take in prison environments, Zimbardo would convert the basement of Stanford University into a mock prison. Twenty-four healthy male college students would participate in this experiment; however, half would be acting as prisoners and the latter as guards. This experiment would go on for two weeks to fully analyze the ending result of the mock environment. The end goal was to learn about the process by which each person learns to become compliant or authoritarian. Although, one could argue that in the end, it was unethical to carry out this study …show more content…

The first example of cruelty expressed by the guards formed quickly after each party was dehumanized. Slowly a symbiotic relationship formed whereas guards became more aggressive, the prisoners would become more obedient. Throughout the experiment, guards would make comments such as, “ I wanted to go back in the cell and have a go with him, since he attacked me when I wasn’t ready;” or “ but we were always there to show them who was boss.” This relationship resulted in three prisoners having to be let go because of extreme depression and other fits of rage, within the first few days. And as Zimbardo had discussed the study, he made the analysis that, “ from the first to the last day, there was a significant increase in the guards’ use of most of these domineering, abusive tactics.” The fact that Zimbardo could clearly see that discovery, and still continue this experiment is extraordinary. This experiment has blatantly expressed itself that it is unethical in its torturous

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In Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment, 20 college aged boys are selected to play different roles in a simulated prison located within Stanford. This experiment was thought of and carried out by Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology. The boys, who were also students at Stanford, were randomly selected to be a guard or a prisoner. The prisoners were taken by real police officers to the Stanford jail. When the experiment started, most of the prisoners thought of the situation as it was intended to be, an experiment.

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During the fall of 1973, Phillip Zimbardo conducted his famous Stanford Prison Study where he recruited 24 undergraduate students to either become prisoners or guards in his experimental prison: the “Stanford County Jail". The recreation of this prison was conducted to study how an individual’s status and/or label changed depending on the social role they had to fulfill. The participants included 12 guards and 12 prisoners, each given proper uniform to wear, such as providing the prisoners with a smock that contained ID numbers on both sides and a chain with a heavy ball around their ankle. Both groups were also given detailed instructions on the requirements they had to complete in order for the individual to assimilate to their character.

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In summary, the purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to demonstrate that powerful situational forces, much like Abu Ghraib, could over-ride individual dispositions and choices, leading good people to do bad things simply because of the role they found themselves

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However, the ethical decisions they made during the experiment were directly related to the roles they were assigned – the guards believed it was ‘right’ to punish and humiliate the prisoners because the prisoners were ‘bad’. As for the ethics of the experiment, Zimbardo said he believed the experiment was ethical before it began but unethical in hindsight because he and the others involved had no idea the experiment would spiral to the point of abuse that it did. The Stanford Prison Experiment reveals the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior.

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Some guards are more forceful than others and place prisoners in the Hole or revoke privileges to demand attention and respect. Some prisoners started to protest these demeaning actions that were unnecessary from the guards. Guards retaliated with their various forms of indirect of abuse. This was when the first signs of distress occurred among the prisoners. The prisoners started to barricade themselves in their cells as a way to protest against the guards and in response, a guard blew a fire extinguisher onto the inmates of Cell 2 (Zimbardo, 2007).

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The guards and soldiers got so carried away with their position of power that they lost sight of what their job really were.   The students involved in the experiment started behaving in the same way because they thought that they were really in prison and that they were not informed that it was still an experiment.   The isolation caused the groups to develop an us against the world mentality which led them to believe that no one would understand what they were going through except for the other members of the communities. A while after the experiment, a prisoner was asked about his experience during the experiment and was asked to discuss on his time in solitary confinement.   He talks about how he lost his identity and how he became just another prisoner at the time.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment: Human Nature and the Power of Social Roles Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (as well as Milgram’s obedience study) are absolutely fascinating. In fact, their studies are largely the reason why I became interested in pursing psychology as my major. I have seen numerous documentaries about the psychology of evil, as well as read many books and articles pertaining to this area. I find these types of social psychology studies enthralling because I have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that normal people are capable of such heinous acts. Moreover, theses classic studies leave me constantly questioning whether or not I would have behaved in a similar fashion.

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The guards took matters into their own hands and drove the prisoners out of their cells. The guards began to take on cruel and sadistic behaviors by humiliating the prisoners with menial tasks such as cleaning their latrines with their bare hands. After the sixth day the experiment was terminated because it was immoral to the prisoner group, of which lost three members due to mental breakdowns. It was concluded that many people tend to fit into social norms and don’t consider personal responsibility even for acts that are

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Which was informed consent, do not harm, avoid deception, and protect respondents’ privacy and responsibility to the scientific community. With the Stanford Experiment he did do all of this Voluntary and informed them of what was happening. He stated this all in the consent forms and showed them what they were getting involved in. Then when he broke them into special groups to have the guards and the prisoners which at the time the guards were part of the 24 put into the experiment. Then another type was harm.

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Even though there are people willing to risk it all to go back to the life they had, there are some that become submissive and stop fighting. In Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Stanford phycology department. They recruited college students to run a mock prison so they could study the effect of becoming a prisoner and a prison guard. In this experiment that was supposed to run for two weeks ended up being stopped by the researchers on the six day because it was getting out of control. This is stated by the heads of the experiment Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, W. Curtis Banks, and David Jaffe in their report of the experiment.

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Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo questioned, “What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?” (Zimbardo, 1971) In 1971 a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment on the effects prison has on young males with the help of his colleague Stanley Milgram. They wanted to find out if the reports of brutality from guards was due to the way guards treated prisoners or the prison environment.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment portrayed that a prison environment conflicted personalities and roles of an individual to act out of character. From an inmate’s perspective in the American prison system they were powerless. From a guard’s perspective it was the need to instill fear to obtain order in such a hostile environment over dangerous criminals. Considering the fact that the expected two week long experiment only lasted a week, suggests that conditions were more harsh than expected. Dr. Zimbardo challenged ethical principles of psychology dealing with human relations, and resolving ethical issues within a prison environment.

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Terrorist organizations Terrorism has always attempted to strike fear into innocent people through different tactics; however, no one has taken these people lightly. Terrorism doesn't just have a set of rules they follow they will use any means necessary to accomplish the mission. The groups operate without any morals or standards. Women and children in these certain groups of people aren't the most valuable resource to protect but are much easier to use as human shields and suicide bombers. Through constant persecution from the modern day terrorist group, people began to dig deeper into their past, compare and contrast the terror groups, and analyze the countries who fight the terrorists.

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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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The experiment was executed well. Yet, there are unethical practices happened during the experiment. First, the participants were not fully informed about the experiment. The researchers did not explain to the participants the processes in conducting the experiment. The participants were not informed that they would be arrested by cops in their homes.

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