Behavioral And Psychological Behavior Of Becoming A Prisoner Or Prison Guard Essay

Dr Philip Zimbardo created the Stanford prison experiment in 1971, the aim of this experiment was to find out the psychological effects of prison life, and to what extent can moral people be seduced to act immorally. The study consisted of 24 students selected out of 75, the roles of these 24 men were randomly assigned, 12 to play prison guards and 12 to play prisoners. The prison set up was built inside the Stanford’s psychological department, doors where taken of laboratory rooms and replaced with steel bars in order to create cells. At the end of the corridor was the small opening which became the solitary confinement for the ‘bad prisoners’. Throughout the prison there were no windows or clocks to judge the passage in time, which resulted in time distorting experiences. After only a few hours, the participants adapted to their roles well beyond expectations, the officers starting

Another issue in Zimbardo’s experiment was in the treatment of the prisoners. The guards would curse at the prisoners and force them to ridiculous and arbitrary tasks such as forcing them to pick thorns out of their blankets which the guards had dragged through the bushes (737). Even the prisoners would make detrimental remarks about their fellow prisoners (737). The extreme actions taken by the guards resulted in some prisoners developing anxiety symptoms, one symptom even exhibiting itself in a psychosomatic rash when one prisoner’s parole was rejected by the parole board (738). The American Psychological Association makes it very clear on this type of behavior in their code of ethics they state that “any direct or indirect participation in any act of torture or other forms of cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment or punishment by psychologists is strictly prohibited. There are no exceptions.”

The prisoners were emotionally and mentally harmed during the experiment. The prisoners started to lose their identity, and instead started identifying themselves as their number. One participant even went on a hunger strike for the time that he was in the prison. Another participant had to leave the study because he became excessively disturbed as time went on. After the study was done, people had trouble separating what the people did in the study to how they were in real life, which caused a problem when they all had to meet after the trial was over. This ethical violation is very apparent because Dr. Zimbardo did have to end the study before the two weeks was done.

Philip Zimbardo ended the experiment on the grounds that the behavior of the guards was escalating to a point where it was ethically wrong to treat a person this way, as well as the way the guards broke so many of the initial rules (Zimbardo). The guards misused their power by using it to humiliate and abuse the prisoners. Because of the way this experiment was cut short, data was limited, but this does not mean that what was collected is not useful or helpful. The audio, video, and rating scales of the individuals’ moods were all collected and compiled as the experiment progressed. The data recorded showed that guards and prisoners adjusted easily to their given roles, treating the situation very seriously and realistically. One of the men, Dave Eshelman, who was placed as a guard was interviewed about his time in the prison. In this quote he talks about taking up the role of a guard, and how it affected his mind and the experiment personally:

Although this experiment suffers from multiple ethical dilemmas I think Zimbardo tried to design and achieve a safe study. The main ethical problem in this study is that the prisoners suffered mental and possible physical damage including fear, anger, and stress. One prisoner was even removed from the experiment after thirty-six hours because of uncontrollable screaming, crying, and anger tirades. In addition, three other individuals were removed after it appeared they had experienced emotional damage that could be long-lasting. All of the emotions experienced by the prisoners were discussed in class as elements making a study unethical. However, it is important to note that Zimbardo attempted to prevent these types of results by having participants psychologically examined prior to the experiment being conducted. This was discussed in class as a justification of harm. This process is called screening; it removes possible candidates

In the documentary Quiet Rage, the story of Zimbardo’s prison experiment is retold. In the documentary, Zimbardo develops a hypothesis that the abusive behaviors in prison is either caused by pre-existing personality traits of the inmates and guards, or the prison environment itself is the cause. He tested his hypothesis by carefully selecting 24 physically healthy, and mentally stable, male college students to participate in a “mock prison” experiment. The basement of Stanford’s psychology department was used to recreate a prison environment, complete with cells, a prison yard, Warden and Superintendent’s offices, and solitary confinement. Half of the test subjects were randomly selected to be prisoner, and the other half to be guards. They were to be placed in the environment, and their roles, for two weeks, and to be carefully observed by Zimbardo who also acted as the prison superintendent. Zimbardo planned to observe the affects the prison environment had the subjects. Due to the extremely abusive characteristics guards developed, and the swift decline of

In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created the experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo wanted to investigate further into human behavior, so he created this experiment that looked at the impact of taking the role of a prisoner or prison guard. These researchers examined how the participants would react when placed in an institutionalized prison environment. They set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building. Twenty four undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. These students were chosen because they were emotional, physically, and mentally stable. Though the experiment was expected to last two weeks, it only lasted six days after the researchers and participants became aware of the harm that was being done.

The psychology professor, Philip Zimbardo, from Stanford University began to test how imprisonment affects different people in August 1971. He chose twenty four out of seventy five male students. These students were the most psychologically and physically stable. Zimbardo built a mock prison in the basement of the university. Within the twenty four chosen students some were randomly selected to be guards. The guards only had to pretend for eight hours a day, and then got to return to their normal lives. The prisoners had to stay in the prison all day for seven to fourteen days.

In 1971 Philipp Zimbardo carried out one of the most ethically controversial psychological experiment the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’. Originally he aimed to study how much our behavior is structured by the social role we occupy. Describing the study briefly 24 undergraduates with no criminal and psychological record were chosen for the research to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of Stanford University Psychology Building, equipped by hidden cameras and microphones. As the lead researcher, Zimbardo was observing the events from a different room, giving instructions to the guards. The research was supposed to last about two weeks. However,

The Zimbardo prison experiment was a study of human responses to captivity, dehumanization and its effects on the behavior on authority figures and inmates in prison situations. Conducted in 1971 the experiment was led by Phlilip Zimbardo. Volunteer College students played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a simulated prison setting in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.

After learning about conducting research in an ethical way, I do not believe that Dr. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment was ethical in anyway. During the process of conducting his research, a lot of unethical events took place, especially with his participants that were chosen to be casted as “inmates”. According to the book, there are certain rules that must be followed when dealing with participants to ensure they are taken care of in an ethical manner.

Phillip Zimbardo, a well-known psychologist, taught at schools such as NYU, Yale and Stanford. Although, he gained popularity for his work at Stanford, especially regarding the Stanford prison experiment. Zimbardo’s experiment commenced by recruiting Stanford undergrads for rigorous testing for their mental stability and other physical factors. It resulted in 21 undergrads being placed in “a 2-week study, divided randomly into 10 “prisoners,” and 11 ”guards.” They were placed into a prison setting, where the prisoners occupied cells, and the guards watched over them. After 6 days, the experiment had spun out of control as simulation turned into reality, necessitating the early release of some prisoners” (Whitbourne). The whole experiment want array after just one day, humanity was not at its finest.

Zimbardo’s (1973) aim was to analyze the aftermath of experiencing the life of an inmates. To do so, the latter recruited participants and the subjects were allocated to the position of prison guards and inmates randomly. Only a few hours after being exposed to the prison life, both prisoners and guards got overly impregnated with their respective roles causing psychological harm which lead to the experiment being dismissed after only five days. Zimbardo enquired afterwards and found that the participants started believing that they were really prison officers and inmates, hence showing that they had conformed to their roles. However, similar to Milgram’s study, ethical issues were raised whereby the harm caused psychologically by the study could not be foreseen by any of the experimenters (Zimbardo et al.,

Throughout history there have been hundreds upon hundreds of influential figures, although not all of them have devoted their career to understanding the human mind. Of the few who have devoted their time to this hugely important task, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo’s theories and experiments have made him stand out, and differentiate himself from the rest in his profession. Zimbardo 's area of expertise in the field of psychology is social psychology, the branch that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Zimbardo may be most well known for his Stanford Prison experiment, an experiment that seems to address the definition of social psychology perfectly. In this experiment Zimbardo had clinically healthy and sane people volunteer for the position of a prison guard or a prisoner and see how they behaved, for fifteen dollars a day. The prison was actually the basement of the Stanford psychology building, where the experiment would take place for a planned 14 days. As said before, the prisoners and guards were all tested as mentally healthy, and for the sake of the experiment were arrested, and processed on a random morning, August 14th 1971. (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 23). The results of this experiment are outstanding, shocking, and somewhat disturbing, making this one of, if not, the most unethical psychological experiments. Although the experiment is considered wildly immoral, Zimbardo is one of the most influential psychologists

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the basement of Stanford University as a mock prison. Zimbardo’s aim was to examine the effect of roles, to see what happens when you put good people in an evil place and to see how this effects tyranny. He needed participants to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ and recruited them through an advertisement, 75 male college students responded and 24 healthy males were chosen and were randomly allocated roles. Zimbardo wanted to encourage deindividuation by giving participants different uniforms and different living conditions (the guards had luxuries and the prisoners were living as real prisoners). The guards quickly began acting authoritarian, being aggressive towards the prisoners and giving them punishments causing physical and emotional breakdowns. Zimbardo’s intention was for his study to last for 2 weeks, however, it