There are uncanny similarities and differences between the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding's and the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Two of the main subjects from LOTF were civilization and savagery. When put into isolation, would the boys on the island be civilized or fall into the trap of savagery. In the SPE, Zimbardo wanted to find out how humans would perform in a prison-like environment. He put 24 male students in a prison simulation, role-playing as prisoners and guards.
In both Lord of the Flies and the stanford prison experiment, it is demonstrated that people’s more dark and savage side comes out when they are placed in a situation where they are isolated from civilization. In the stanford prison experiment, the college students’ dark sides came out only 36 hours into the experiment: “And finally, about were hostile, arbitrary, and intensive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests were able to predict this behavior,” (SPE 12). The experiment began with average middle class college students who were told to act like prison guards. For the time being, they were isolated to the prison and interacting with the “prisoners” all day.
Nathan Adkins AP Psych 4th Hour October 5th, 2017 Stanford Prison Experiment Dr. Philip Zimbardo wanted to conduct an experiment where he could study the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner/prison guard. The experiment was canceled after only 6 days because it showed to be detrimental to the subjects’ mental health and wellbeing.
The ¨Stanford Prison Experiment¨ was a breakdown of the morals and rules on how people would act toward one another due to their environment, rather than how they should. The study had created more questions than answers, specifically about the darkness and lack of moral standards that inhabits the human soul. It showed that methodical abuse and denial of human rights is nothing new in prison facilities. The novel Lord of the Flies shows how easily people become dangerous depending on their situation, and how easily humans become savages when there are no definite rules. Lord of the Flies and ¨The Stanford Prison Experiment¨ have many similarities in the way they both show the effects that occur when you lose all moral standards, and lack of rules.
When structure disappears among civilized people, chaos arrives. In the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the boys find each other on the island and they try to set up a type of rule within the island and the boys. Much like how in the “Stanford Prison Experiment” by Sam McLeod, when the experiment starts, it is an organized and set up way. The article states “Guard were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners” (McLeod). In both the book and the article, the beginning was the time for them to start the way of how order was supposed to be.
Before the experiment began, all participants went through a psychological evaluation to make sure they were of sound mind (Onishi & Herbert, 2016). Once the experiment began the “prisoners” were arrested and taken to a simulated prison where they were stripped searched and demoralized. During the 6 days that the study lasted, conduct between both sides, prisoners and guards, was less than expectable. Both sides “acted as though a punishment was justified as an acceptable response to a breach of the rules” (Onishi & Herbert, 2016), rules that were vaguely explained.
I watched the Stanford Prison Experiment video. After watching the video, I was amazed at what the participants went through mentally in such a short time. I was shocked by how the prisoners accepted this as a reality, like it was actually prison. I was especially interested in the student that played the role of a prison guard that was nicknamed John Wayne. It seemed very strange to me that he willingly harassed and eventually tortured the participants playing the role of prisoners.
Murder or Mercy: Morality in the Human Brain “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” - Michio Kaku When reading such stimulating novels such as Lord of the Flies, the psychological mysteries of the human mind are often the first thing you notice, be it the ability to justify killing another human being or just the need to build a society in order to maintain humanity. The psychological deterioration in both Golding’s fictitious novel, Lord of the Flies, and Zimbardo’s in depth psychological study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, are similar in the character archetypes that emerge in the stressful situation and the results of a particular ethical code gaining authority.
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.
More than 70 students applied for the experiment. They chose 24 men and paid them $15.00 a day. Their neighbors, friends, and family were told they were arrested for crimes such as armed robbery or theft. They were randomly assigned guard positions or prisoner positions. “In reality, the Stanford County Prison was a heavily manipulated environment, and the guards and prisoners acted in ways that were largely predetermined by how their roles were presented.
The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971 focused on the effects that an “evil” place could have on a good person. The goal of this experiment was to find out when good people are put in an evil place, will good win over evil? Or will evil rise above the good? From the experiment, having good people in an evil place and being put in harsh situations effected the way that the prisoners and guards acted. Guards who were more lenient toward the prisoner did not say anything to the guards who were stricter in their treatment of the prisoners. The prisoners also started to act out, and sometimes would single out the actions of other prisoners as a way to protect themselves from the harsh guards.
There were rebellions against the constant surveillance, oppression, and invasion of privacy such as refusing to eat, being “sick” to require attention, direct force, setting up a grievance committee. There was a loss of personal identity within the prisoners. When surrounded by others who are dressed exactly alike, and given only a number to be referred to as there is no self identity. During the Stanford Prison Experiment the prisoners were given the opportunity to give up their payment and leave, “One of the most remarkable incidents of the study occurred during a parole board hearing when each of five prisoners eligible for parole was asked by the senior author whether he would be willing to forfeit all the money earned as a prisoner if he were to be paroled (released from the study) Three of the prisoners said ‘yes,’ they would be willing to do this.
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.
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
However, due to the present negative effects of the environment and people in current prisons, it would be confusing to differentiate one from the other. Therefore, the focus of the Stanford Prison Study was to simulate a prison-like environment in which average people play the roles of “guards” and “prisoners,” and then observe the
