Dr. Philip Zimbardo 's ' The Stanford Prison Experiment '

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

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo was written to explain the results of the Stanford prison experiment. Zimbardo while trying to gain support for his conclusions of the experiment, demonstrated many errors in his writing, and in his own experiment. The errors that Zimbardo commits call into question the validity of his argument, and the experiment. The goal explained by Zimbardo was “to understand more about the process by such people called “prisoners” lose their liberty, civil rights, independence, and privacy, while those called “guards” gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling and managing the lives of their dependent charges” (Zimbardo 733).

The mock prison included three 6’ x 9’ prison cells, each of which housed three prisoners and three cots. The other rooms were assigned to prison guards and the warden. One small space became the solitary confinement room, and another small space was designated as the prison yard. The participants were randomly assigned to either the prisoner or prison guard role.

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

The article on the Stanford Prison Experiment titled, A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison and written by the Office of Naval Research, provides us with the overall information that deals with this controversial psychological study. The study was conducted by

Imagine waking up, reading the local Sunday newspaper, and coming across an advertisement that offered fifteen dollars a day to any male college student that was willing to participate in a study at Stanford University for three weeks (Dunning). Close to seventy broke college boys hustled their way to Stanford for an interview with the professor who was leading the experiment, Philip Zimbardo. An interview was conducted to determine whether the boys were healthy, mentally and physically. Only twenty-four of the seventy men were chosen though, only to be test subjects in a study that would look further into the psychological effects of prison life. Making the ones who weren't fit for the study, essentially lucky (Zimbardo).

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 Stanford Prison Experiment was a study conducted by Phillip Zimbardo to better understand how people will react if put into an evil setting, and if we as humans, would allow it to consume us, or overcome it with our moral values and obligations. 24 participants were selected to participate out of the 70 volunteers. Before the experiment began, Zimbardo randomly selected students, either as “Prison Guards” or “Prisoners”. Zimbardo expected it to be a boring study that would last one to two weeks, but soon realized he would need to end the experiment within six days.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a classic study conducted by Dr. Philip Zimbardo to test whether external factors in the environment can influence a person to behave contrary to their dispositional tendencies. Zimbardo wanted to know what happens to a person who is “good” in an evil place. More specifically, he wanted to see if institutions such as a prison has the power to control a persons behavior or if their good nature rises above the negative environment.

Philip G. Zimbardo conducted an experiment called The Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1973. Zimbardo sets out to see the outcome if you create a false prison and get ordinary college students and make half of the students guards and the other half of the students prison inmates how will the volunteers react with their new roles. Zimbardo main points of the prison experiment were to see if the volunteers can handle their new positions. Also another main point of Zimbardo’s experiment was how much the volunteers will psychologically withhold in the new penitentiary environment by obeying order. After reading Zimbardo's experiment the volunteers did not only have short term trauma but also long term effects to their personality.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by a research group led by Dr. Philip Zimbardo using Stanford students during August 14 through the 20th of 1971. Dr. Zimbardo wanted to see how people reacted when they are either put in captivity or in charge of others. The study was funded by the US Office of Naval Research and grew interest to both the US Navy and the Marine Corps for an investigation to the purpose of conflict among military guards and prisoners. In the study, 24 male students were selected out of 75 applicants to take on randomly assigned roles. One of the surprises of the study was how participants quickly adapted to roles well beyond expectations. After the first eight hours, the experiment turned to be a joke and nobody was taking it seriously but then prisoners

The men who would be prisoners were mock arrested, finger printed, and photographed and taken to the basement of the university. They were strip-searched and given clothing made to make them feel uncomfortable, and also given a hat/smock, and a chain was put around their ankle and were put 3 a cell. The purpose of the experiment "Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (i.e. dispositional) or had more to do with the prison environment (i.e. situational). " The mock prison had viewing windows, also video and and audio recordings were made. As a hypothesis Zimbardo wished to understand what character traits if any caused by both Prisoners and Guards and if and how it would lead to abusive behavior The experiment was made up of 24 individuals all from similar backgrounds as all were college students, and were randomly chosen to be either "prisoners" and "guards".

The Stanford prison experiment was a procedure conducted by psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo in which he tested the psychology of prison life on the human psyche. The Stanford Prison experiment is one of the most touted and highly regarded procedures done to closely display how dangerous the caged human mind can be. It also effectively shows what power can do to people despite their characteristics. Although the investigation was planned over a two week span it had to be stopped quickly after ONLY six days because the guards became sadistic and the prisoners became depressed and exhibited signs of extreme stress. Throughout the experiment Dr. Zimbardo put on display how the mind works and how easily it can be manipulated by a series of intricate and deliberate situations. Situations that can impact confidences and ego’s that we as humans posses.

The environment of a prison is affiliated as an aggressive and violent institution. Paul Zimbardo, a psychologist and Stanford University professor believed it was the nature of the roles that prisoners and guards were expected to portray that induced such violent behavior. He conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 to observe ordinary people when randomly assigned the roles of a “prisoner” or a “guard”. He gathered 24 young male students from the United States and Canada, converting the basement of the Stanford psychology building into a mock prison to conduct the experiment. Costumes were provided in an attempt to make the experiment more “realistic”. The participants who were to be guards were given uniforms, mirrored

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