Ethics In Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment

I believe that although valuable information came from it, the ethical quality of this experiment is very questionable. I suspected that the guards would turn more authoritative than any of them would have in real life, but I never thought that they would go as far as ridiculing some prisoners to tears. Although there were none of the prisoners had any long term effects from participating, while in the experiment they would be harassed and punished for no reason, which is where I think the experiment should have been discontinued. Control of the experiment was lost as everybody involved, including Zimbardo became completely engulfed in their roles of the prison. This really makes me question Zimbardo and the other researchers to how they could be too involved in their own experiment to stop the experiment when it began to grow out of control. I think that in the experiment the guards showed who they really were. None of them would have acted that way in their own lives. Zimbardo watched all of this on a hidden camera, and didn’t do anything until long after I along with many others think it should have been. It’s not only that the participants didn’t see the unethical characteristics of this experiment, a priest that was called in and the prisoners parents that came for a visitation day didn’t protest the treatment of their sons after hearing stories of the mock prison. There is something about these symbols of

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.

The Stanford Prison experiment was terminated of August 20, 1971 only 6 days after it began. The experiment was destined to fail because the psychologist Philip Zimbardo failed to follow the APA’s ethical guideline. Dr. Zimbardo put himself in the experiment causing him to be unaware of his responsibilities to the community he worked in. Zimbardo and the correctional officers also violated the Justice and respect for people's rights and dignity. The guards were given too much power and instead of stopping them Zimbardo and his team just sat back and watched.

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 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

Most prisoners experienced bursts of crying, screaming and aggression. Although not all risks in the study could be reduced as they were not anticipated, the study wasn’t shut down when problems did arise. Dr Zimbardo acted unprofessionally and in no way ethically. The suffering of the prisoners was obvious but was ignored making it clear that the best interests of the participants were not

In the summer of 1971, an article in the Palo Alto Times read: “Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. 15 dollars per day for 1-2 weeks…” And thus it began the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, designed by Professor Philip Zimbardo to understand how the relationships between prisoners and guards developed overtime. Around 70 students applied, and after some extensive evaluation for psychological problems and criminal history, 24 people were deemed fit enough for the experiment. With a flip of a coin, 9 were assigned to play guards, 9 to play prisoners, and others as back-ups.

Was it ethical to conduct this study? The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. The aim of this experiment was to study human behavior by laying down up a fake experiment in a basement in one of Stanford university buildings (Musen & Zimbardo, 1991). The participants of the experiment were asked to assume either the role of a prisoner or a prison guard.

What would you have done if you were a participant in the study? I thought the experiment was very informative but it lacked boundaries. I would have stopped the experiment as soon as I witnessed the prisoners exhibiting signs of distress. The participants conformed to their roles but many of them lost touch with reality. When society lacks boundaries we have to be assertive and set them for ourselves.

The Stanford prison experiment was a milestone study. Led by Philip Zimbardo, volunteers played the roles of guard and prisoner, and lived in a mock prison. Although the duration of the experiment was half of what was expected, the experiment highlights the “impressionability and obedience of people with a legitimizing ideology”. Zimbardo specifically set up conditions to trigger disorientation of the participants.

In my opinion it is obvious that The Stanford Prison experiment was not ethical. The prisoners (actual students) were humiliated and were place in psychological distress. They demonstrated distress when they began to accept hopelessness and some even lost their true identity. The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was planned to last two weeks, and participants were screened for physical and psychological health, but the experiment produced unexpected results. Although Zimbardo did eventually make the ethical decision to end the study early, it’s not enough to justify or excuse him to have allowed unethical and immoral behavior during the length of his experiment.

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

The Stanford Prison experiment was a psychological experiment conducted by professor Philip Zimbardo on August 14 to August 20 in 1971. The aim of this experiment was to understand the effects on roles, labels and expectations conducted in a prison environment. 24 College students took part in the experiment and were given either the role as a prison guard or a prisoner. Students during this experiment were told that they were going to be assigned roles of the prisoners and guards, they would be observed and that they were expect to participate throughout the entire study.

The purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment was to understand the effects that the norms in a prison environment have on those in it. To give an idea of the type of individuals selected for this experiment, the official website for the experiment mentions, “Our study of prison life began, then, with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners”(prisonexp.org). The individuals were of the same social class in the same conditions of health and intelligence, therefore, they were very similar. This means that whatever resulted from the experiment, such as changes in behavior or health, was not caused by other than the conditions in the prison. The man who conducted

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