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The Stanford Jail Experiment Summary

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The Stanford jail experiment, which was carried out in 1971 by Phillip Zimbardo, was designed to examine the function of power in a prison environment. In a mock jail setting, subjects were randomly assigned to the roles of "prisoners" and "guards." The experiment was intended to run for two weeks but was discontinued after six days. In the Stanford experiment, a few ethical principles were not adhered to.
The ethics of Informed Consent. The act of providing interested research volunteers with the facts they require to fully understand the nature of a project and make a decision regarding participation (Farray, N., 2023) In the video, it is stated that Zimbardo argues that volunteers were informed of the circumstances they would face (Im, 2017), …show more content…

Looking at the video, Prisoner #8612 assumed that no one could leave the experiment until it was over. That is a classic example of deception by Zimbardo in the Stanford experiment. Even though he stated in the video that "he believed that we would never let him go, although we never said that," he didn’t reassure the prisoner that he could leave on his own accord. Zimbardo was not truthful with prisoner #8612, assuring him that he can leave the experiment whenever he wishes, and prisoner #8612 convinces the other prisoners that they were in a real prison and that they cannot leave until the experiment is over. That in itself lacks integrity and was …show more content…

The exchanges between the guards and the prisoners were unrestricted, yet they were hostile or even demeaning. While the prisoners were submissive and depressed, the guards started acting aggressively and abusively toward them. Five of the inmates had to be removed from the research early due to strong negative feelings, including crying and increased anxiety. When the guards made the rest of the prisoners chant, "Prisoner #819 did a bad thing," he refuted his claim of wanting to leave because he immediately began to believe he was a bad prisoner. Even the researchers themselves started to forget what was going on. Before graduate student, Christina Maslach raised concerns about the environment in the mock prison and the morality of continuing the experiment, Zimbardo, who served as the prison warden, did not take the abusive behavior of the jail guards seriously.
In conclusion, in the Stanford prison experiments, a few ethical principles were not adhered to, as prisoners’ human rights were not regarded, putting the participants in possible danger.
What should have been different in the Stanford prison experiment?
Zimbardo should have had another colleague oversee the experiment as well, as the researcher should not have had a dual role in the experiment. Young students

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