Stanford Prison Experiment Summary

1. This website’s main purpose is to provide insight in to the Stanford Prison experiment of 1971. It provides a quick overview of the experiment and it’s results; information about the movie, documentary, and book based on the experiment; images, and other information correlating to the prison study. This website explains that The Stanford Prison experiment consisted of 24 male college students who responded to an ad looking for volunteers for a two week long psychological experiment about the effect of prisons. A makeshift prison was made in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department building including a ‘yard’ for prisoners to exercise in and a small closet that was meant to simulate solitary confinement. Cameras and an intercom

Eventually Professor Phillip G. Zimbardo, the head research psychologist on this project, began actually thinking like a prison superintendent when the prison was threatened with the rumor of a break in. He sunk into his role and began taking extreme measures for a rumor of a prison break that wasn’t even into a real prison. The conditions of the prison so effectively blurred the line between reality and the simulation that the people involved genuinely began to believe that the role they were playing was real. The study was soon ended early at six days as the guards began to act in more sadistic ways by degrading and even sexually harassing the prisoners causing the morality of the project to be

Zimbaro, the psychologist who conducted the Stanford Prison experiment, and the Social Psychology Network which is maintained by the Scott Plous, a psychologist from Wesleyan University. The data and images were taken directly from the the experiment giving the reader an accurate, candid view into it. The author, Philip G. Zimbaro, is perhaps one of the only people with sufficient expertise to write about the Stanford Prison experiment because he was he lead psychologist on the project and had the first-hand experience observing it. There was mostly likely information that was omitted probably because it was too graphic or invaded the privacy of those involved with the project. I don’t think that the information that invades the privacy of the participants should be included, but I do think that even the more graphic information should be. While that information might make the reader a little uncomfortable, it would help give clearer insight to what occurred during the project and provide valuable