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Was The Stanford Prison Experiment Ethical Or Unethical?

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Stanford Prison Experiment
Was this experiment ethical or unethical?
“Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks beginning Aug. 14. For further information & applications come to Room 248, Jordan Hall, Stanford U.” That was the ad in the newspaper that began the experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was conducted by a man named Philip Zimbardo who was interested in the roles people play in prison situations. This essay supports why the SPE was ethical. The SPE was unethical because it is scaring, humiliating, and inhumane that is why it is unethical.

I believe that the SPE was unethical and should not have been able to be conducted. If you look back at the experiment and read about it, or watch the movie, you can see that it was not even a true experiment. There was no variable, hypothesis, constant, or a change. Zimbardo was just keeping people locked up. But at that time what Zimbardo was doing was not against any laws. …show more content…

Once the guards got the prisoners out of the cells they would humiliate them, make them workout, and be locked in a closet called “The Hole” as punishments. After 36 hours into the experiment Prisoner #8612 had started to suffer from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage. Later during a prison count Prisoner #8612 started to go crazy and was telling the other prisoners "You can't leave. You can't quit." So he was later released and allowed to go home. This shows some of the causes of the

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