Effects Of The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison experiment was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo is a social psychologist at Stanford University, and has been for over 50 years. The study took place to determine the emotional and psychological effects that took place people placed as prisoners or guards. This experiment was a success because it brought out different, extreme changes in both groups of participants. One of the main problems with the experiment was how successful it was, when prisoners started to exhibit severe emotional distress and other abnormal behavior and, guards began to become extremely violent with the amount of power they had. Another problem was the morality of the experiment as a whole. When Dr. Christina Maslach

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University on August 14–20, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and was of interest to both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. The experiment is a classic study on the psychology of imprisonment and is a topic covered in most introductory psychology textbooks.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was to determine how conformity and obedience could result in people behaving in ways that are counter to how they would at on their own. The main goal of the experiment was to see how social norms and social convections might influence the behavior of participants who are playing the roles of prisoners and prison guards. The study really elaborates on the relationship between the abuser and the abused. It is interesting to see how easily the human psyche gives repetitive abuse and is conditioned to receive it and accept it. This paper will discuss the motives, procedures, findings, ethical issues, and informed consent the Stanford Prison Experiment concluded on.

This experiment to me really shows just how many people will obey to authority even when it means going against your morals. The Milgram case helped me to criticize my surroundings more so than rather overlook what is going on. We are taught to obey authority at a young age and all throughout our adolescence. It is hard to say that some of these pre notions aren’t conditioned into our every day

While the results of Milgram’s experiment are concrete, their application to real life is questioned because of the deception throughout the procedure. The results of the experiment prove that people are likely to obey in a laboratory setting, but Baumrind exposes the difference between a lab and real life. Because the subject is in an unfamiliar setting he has a certain amount of trust in the authority figure (Baumrind

In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment on a group’s obedience to authority. This experiment has encountered intense scrutiny ever since its findings were first published in 1963; many people question the ethics and validity of the experiment. Multitudes of researchers have taken it upon themselves to determine the answers to the questions (McLeod). Based on new guidelines for ethics, Stanley Milgram’s experiment on the obedience to authority was neither ethical nor valid.

Tyranny is defined: an unequal social system involving the arbitrary or oppressive use of power by one group over another (Reicher & Haslam, 2006). The link made between groups and tyranny has a long history in social psychology being prominent nearly 2,400 years ago with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle believed that collective rule leads to moral irresponsibility, haphazardness and is a disguised form of tyranny. Research into tyranny has been carried out ever since.

“That line between good and evil is permeable,” a psychologist from Stanford University by the name of Zimbardo once said. “Any of us can move across it… I argue that we all have the capacity for love and evil — to be Mother Theresa, to be Hitler or Saddam Hussein” (qtd. In Dittmann). Social psychologist Zimbardo implies that we can easily swap from side to side. What factors elicit darkness? What draws out the darkness, making us jump from good to bad? There are many views in the society that attempt to tackle this question. For instance, social psychology and philosophy. Social psychology tends to side with situation and or authority. On the other hand, philosopher John Locke is certain that the accumulation of experiences is the cause. What is the ultimate answer?

The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was study organized by Philip George Zimbardo who was a professor at Stanford University. Basically, SPE was a study of psychological effect. He studied about how personality and environment of a person effect his behaviour. Experiment he performed was based on prison and life of guards. He wants to find out whether personality get innovated in person according to given environment (situational) or due to their vicious personalities that is violent behaviour (dispositional). The place where the whole experiment was set up Philip Zimbardo and his team was Stanford University on August 14Th to August 20th in the year 1971 (Wikipedia).

In the article Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson in the Power of Situation Professor Philip Zimbardo claims that “the situation and the system creating it also must share in the responsibility for illegal and immoral behavior” when deciding an individual’s criminal accountability. Because the power of a situation has an enormous influencing effect on not only the subject, but the people around the situation and that dynamics in military detainment operations carry immediate risks of mistreatment and power abuse. Good people can do very bad things when in a bad situation. Zimbardo starts off his article for the Chronicle of Higher Education with several different social experiments that have been done. After explaining these studies he recalls his own experiment, the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo shares these studies as a cautionary tale and for the audience to reflect on our justice system in regards to imprisonment. Due to Zimbardo’s various appeals to pathos and logos and the methods he used, the argument that he makes about the justice system is effective and relevant.

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 Maria Konnikova’s “The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment” she reveals what she believes to be the reality of sociologist Philip Zimbardo’s controversial study: its participants were not “regular” people.

If I was in charge of an experiment like the Stanford Prison Experiment, I think that I would have conducted something like that. I don’t see any moral reasoning why not to, all the participants were voluntary and there was nothing illegal being conducted and extremely valuable data has been extracted from it so I do not see the point of steering clear of this type of experiment. I think a good follow on study might have been a roll reversal, would the inmates have taken a different approach to the guard duties knowing how they were treated while inmates or would they have acted even more aggressive?

The Stanford prison experiment was unique because they wanted to watch and learn the behaviors of a prisoner and a prison guard, observing the effects they found some pretty disturbing things among the students. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues at Stanford University stayed true to what they believed, and they did what they felt they needed to do to find a set of results for their simulation. Unfortunately they where swallowed into the experiment, when they became the roles, just as the students where. So from their point of view I want to say that what they where doing was ethical, and being that the prison experiment was stopped before its half way mark showed that they realized that it was time to call it quits. Dr. Zimbardo noticed

This report on the Stanford Prison Experiment will define the ethical issues related to prisoner treatment and prison culture in a mock scenario created 1971. The findings of this study define the inclination towards corruption and riotous behavior within the overarching relationship between guard and the prisoners. In a short period of time,. The prisoners became hostile and sought to start a riot in order to free themselves from abuses of the prison guards. In some instances, the issue of role-playing limited to reality of the event, but the ethical issues related to issue of prison corruption became evident in the study. The Stanford Prison Experiment provided some important aspects on how good people can became violent lawbreakers within the orison system. In essence, the ethical and experimental conditions of the Stanford Prison experiment define the corrupting culture of prisons in American society during the early 1970s.