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The Stanford Prison Experiment: Loss Of Personal Identity

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The Stanford Prison Experiment is an enlightening and interesting experiment, although controversial to many. An artificial or mock prison is created and every day, normal people are used to simulate guards and prisoners. The behaviors of both are studied and reported on.
According to Haney, Banks and Zimbrado, (1973) “The Office of Naval Research sponsored the project as part of a larger project intended to develop a better understanding of the basic psychological mechanisms underlying human aggression.” (p. 1) Also according to Haney, Banks and Zimbrado, (1973) the study would hopefully help the Navy and others identify and isolate the processes which motivate aggressive submissive behavior within a total institution such as a prison. (p. …show more content…

In this environment, prisoners lost their own personal identity. While personal identity can be deeply engrained in someone, this experiment demonstrated that changing names to numbers, dress codes, haircuts, behavior styles and individuality can greatly alter someone’s sense of identity. This is significant because it implies that “identity”, which is an interior thing, can be altered intentionally by others through manipulation of exterior factors. If this is the case, then social behavior in the real world can be observed and experimented with further to understand whether identify, which can seemingly be taken away, can conversely be created through similar measures. If it can be created, then one must ask whether such new identity is genuine and reliable. Such studies would be fascinating to …show more content…

Further, the loose guidelines given are a strength. Both of these allowed the participants to act fairly naturally and to evolve naturally. A limitation of the study was the duration of time it was conducted over. In a real world scenario where longevity existed, the participants must find ways to cope and their attitudes evolve further, therefor determining actions perhaps not seen in such a short study. If the study were to be conducted again, I think it can be improved and I would tip the researchers by seeking a wider variety of participants in terms of their background, socio-economic status and historical experiences. Most real prisoners are from different backgrounds and socio-economic backgrounds and as such, their responses initially and evolution of attitudes may be

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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 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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The article also discusses how sexual aggression plays a very large role in violence overall, due to an inmate who is a sexual aggressor who uses violence on their victim and then the victim retaliating against the aggressor using violence, a type of behavior that is comparable to the eye for an eye ideal. Furthermore the article explains some of the other reasons that inmates get into fights, including, “accidental, real, or imagined insults combined with hypersensitivity, homosexual activities, pressuring for possessions, racial conflict, informant activities, and retaliation for past assaults.” Lockwood illustrates that there are several reasons that inmates are violent and that these are only a few of the reasons. Then the article states a study on when and how the violent acts were instigated, stating that of the 114 incidents observed 42 of them begun by “sexual overtures accompanied by offensive gestures and remarks,” 36 of them started with “polite propositions,” 21 of them starting with physical attacks and 15 of them beginning with verbal threats.

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S. (2008). Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory, 2nd Edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Klugiewicz, G. T. (2008). Factors that influence the use of force in a correctional institution.

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The inner moral compulsion to obey is what drives most social organizations. Sykes (2007) described several structural defects that occurred in the New Jersey State prison. Sykes (2007) argues that power in prison is not based on authority therefore prison officials have to find other means to get prisoners to abide by the rules and regulations. The ability to use force to maintain order on a large scale in the prison is an illusion. According to Sykes (2007), Certain privileges such mailing and visiting, personal possessions, time-off for good behavior etc. are given to the inmate all at once upon his or her arrival to the prison.

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Since the beginning of the human existence, man has always dominated and ruled over one another be it empires, corporations, or small groups. Authority and obedience has always been a factor of who we are. This natural occurrence can be seen clearly through the psychological experiments known as The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these studies are based on how human beings react to authority figures and what their obedience is when faced with conflict.

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It relates because a lot of the careers we may choose to take, involve dealing with prisoners, helping people after prison, mental health, and substance abuse. We learn early the reason people commit crime or act out in prisons. From bad neighborhoods to mental disorders, there is always a reason someone does the things they do. Maybe in the future, we can reform the prison system into a better function place, and help people instead of hurt

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Prison reform has been an ongoing topic in the history of America, and has gone through many changes in America's past. Mixed feelings have been persevered on the status of implementing these prison reform programs, with little getting done, and whether it is the right thing to do to help those who have committed a crime. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). In the colonial days, American prisons were utilized to brutally punish individuals, creating a gruesome experience for the prisoners in an attempt to make them rectify their behavior and fear a return to prison (encyclopedia.com, 2007). This practice may have worked 200 years ago, but as the world has grown more complex, time has proven that fear alone does not prevent recidivism.

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In the Zimbardo prison experiment, participants are arbitrarily chosen to be either guards or prisoners. However, both the guards and the prisoners internalize their roles immediately. The study is terminated after 6 days because the guards began physically and emotionally abusing the prisoners. This experiment “reveals a message we do not want to accept: that most of us can undergo significant character transformations when we are caught up in the crucible of social forces” (Zimbardo, 2007, p.211). The Stanford Prison Experiment shows how latent violent and aggressive personalities are easily realized when one has dominance over submissive personalities.

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When a Catholic priest came to the site of the experiment the researchers noticed, “He interviewed each of the prisoners individually as I watched in amazement as half the prisoners he spoke to, when he introduced himself, responded by giving their numbers rather than their name.” (Stanford Narrative 11). This is important because this shows that given the situation a person is in, it could change the identity of the person itself. This is startling because given the situation of a prison a person could lose the freedom of identity. Where they are willing to give up their name and take the name or in this case their number that are given as their identification.

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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 human mind is a very complex organ which contains many psychological components that are infinite to comprehend. Social constructionism is a field that can be broken down into two different paths, socials and psychological behavior. The two films the Stanford Prison Experiment and The Hunting Ground are good examples of both of these processes. The topics of these films are very relevant to the field of psychology due to their contribution to our everyday psychological brain functions.

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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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Another thing that makes this experiment beautiful is that it can help the police and military offices to train their people in coping the stress of being imprisoned among the prisoners. It would help them to know how that prison environment has a great factor in creating brutal behavior among the

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I have never before visited a prison nor have I met a prisoner in my entire life. Why should I care about someone whom I would rarely see? But these inmates are our brothers and sisters who may have made bad choices, but don’t want their mistakes to hold them back. Throughout my life, my once miserable and hopeless circumstances were transformed by education, and I am certain that the same principle can be applied to anyone, including inmates, despite our differences in how we responded to circumstances. It is true that prison takes nearly everything away from them – even their hopes and dreams.

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