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Zimbardo's Experiment Summary

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Zimbardo’s 1971 life experiment, which aimed to investigate how people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a simulated prison scenario, crossed many ethical boundaries. An example of this was the presence of harm throughout the experiment inflicted on the prisoners. Various degrees of physical and psychological harm were imposed upon the ten students. This included beatings, harassment, and torment from the guards, which resulted in emotional distress. Another aspect of this was that the consent form signed by the participants stated they would not be physically harmed. Yet throughout the experiment, the guards began to hit and otherwise physically abuse the prisoners. Once it was established that this consent form was broken, …show more content…

This was somewhat adhered to in Zimbardo’s prison experiment. On one hand, the participants were informed before the study began that they did, in fact, have the right to withdraw at any point during the 14-day period of the experiment, but only “through established procedures” (Zimbardo, 2017). This essentially means that the prisoners could ask to leave in a way that did not compromise the prison environment that they were acting in. A few prisoners did discontinue their participation in the trial. However, for the most part, the participants of the study appeared to forget or overlook the fact that they could leave at any time. The students reinforced a sense of imprisonment by repeatedly telling each other that there was “no way out.”. For example, Prisoner #8612, who began suffering severe psychological and emotional disturbance just one day into the experiment, was accused of attempting to “con” the experimenters into letting him out. After a confronting meeting with the primary prison consultant, Prisoner #8612 told other prisoners, "You can't leave. You can't quit." This of course sent a distressing message, heightened their sense of real imprisonment. Prisoner #8612 then began to act "crazy"; screaming, cursing and in a rage, that was out of control. Zimbardo himself said, “It took quite a while before we

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The Stanford prison experiment was led by Philip Zimbardo with the purpose of studying the psychological effects of being a prisoner and a prison guard. The participants of the research study were male college students. Once selected, a coin toss determined which males would be prisoners and prison guards. The experiment took place at Stanford University, where a mock prison was crafted. Zimbardo acted as the warden or superintendent of the mock prison.

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Other guards joined in, and other prisoners were also tormented. The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders; they were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish; and they were generally dehumanized. The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior, too. They talked about prison issues. ” The prisoners assume the roles they are given due to the environment, and so do the guards.

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The guards were instructed to maintain order anyway they wanted without using physical violence. Zimbardo wanted the guards to seem intimidating while the prisoners were made to look inferior and were to be referred to with their ID number only. After the prisoners were assigned their roles and the guards took their post was the effect of the experiment finally setting in. On the morning of the second day the prisoners began to rebel against the guards by ripping off their ID numbers and barring the doors while taunting the guards. This event was the first step down the slippery slope that would follow.

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There was some confidentiality among the volunteers because they were given ID numbers and were not allowed to use their names and the guards were addressed as just that. The anonymity and confidentiality of the experiment didn't exist because the volunteers were arrested outside their homes and the researchers knew the selected men. Zimbardo's experiment is quasi and observational with the means of discovering how social influence affects people in a prison like environment. Each participant was given a role and some adapted quickly and took it seriously especially when given the power of

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The participants were randomly selected by flipping a coin. They were either made a guard or an inmate; There were 10 inmates and 11 guards. Zimbardo wanted the “criminals” to feel like real criminals and treated like real criminals. He had the participants arrested at their own homes and taken to the police station to go through the whole process of

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Phillip Zimbardo sent out a newspaper add for volunteers to help conduct an experiment. The idea of this experiment was to get boys who would split up into prisoners and prison guards. Throughout the experiment the guards would humiliate and establish a feeling of powerlessness in the prisoners. This lead many of the volunteers into acting like they were in a real life prinson instead of an experiment. For example, many of the prisoners stopped referring to themselves as their birth name.

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