Exploratory Study: The Stanford Prison Experiment

Stanford Prison Experiment: In this experiment it took a group of people and made half of them guards and half of them prisoners. The guards were given sunglasses to make them feel more powerful and have a mask to hide behind and the prisoners had chains put on their legs so they can feel a loss of freedom. In the experiment they were not given any rules to how there supposed to treat the prisoners, because these were fake prisoners they challenged the fake guards power. Since the guard’s were not given

The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by three psychologist; Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo. They tested two theories about the prisons. The first theory was dispositional hypothesis and the second was situational hypothesis. Basically, what these psychologist were looking for was, to see how people react when place in a position of authority in the prison system and also how the prisoners react to the environment. The experiment was setup in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University.

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.

In the experiment, people were picked randomly and one as a teacher and one as the student. They were told to take a quiz and give electric shocks of increasing intensity as punishment if the student can’t answer. During the experiment, many people were concerned as someone can be heard shouting but only a few people who decided to stop and stick to their morals. But the others kept on going because they were just following orders from a superior (Milgram 77). "The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo, is about an experiment that was made to understand the roles people play in prison situations. For the experiment, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. The participants were told to act as prisoners and guards. It was planned to be a two-week experiment but was forced to shut down in 6 days, all because of people quickly getting into their roles and started acting like the real prisoners and guards (Zimbardo 104). To compare both experiments, although they differed vastly in design and methodology, the point of both experiments was to observe how far an individual would go in inflicting increasing pain on a victim. Also how people obey under authoritative circumstances, when given power or different roles, however the writers differ in the seriousness of the fight for individuality and the use of reality.

Those designated to enact the role of a prisoner, were arrested by the Palo Alto police department, obliged to wear chains and prison attire, and were transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department, which was transformed into a makeshift prison. Furthermore, various guards became increasingly aggressive, resulting in the experiment becoming uncontrollable. Within six days, riots broke out, psychological distresses were showcased by certain prisoners, and unruly punishment was given to the prisoners. These irrational and disreputable incidents, caused the experiment to end abruptly.

The year was 1971 and no one was ready for the results that the study, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment would conduct (Whitbourne). A test subject’s fate was determined by the flip of a coin, twelve prison guards and twelve prisoners (Zimbardo). Now that Zimbardo knew he had test subjects, he assembled a team to begin construction of the “Stanford County Jail.” With the help of a former imprisoned convict, the prison was built to be as realistic as possible. Zimbardo said, “The Prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department building (Zimbardo). That corridor was the ‘yard’ and was the only outside place where prisoners would

1. The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment that was created to test the effect between prisoners and prison officers. The experiment took place in the basement of one of the buildings in Stanford University. The prisoners and guards in the experiment were college students. The college students were told that they would get $15 dollars a day and that the experiment would last two weeks. The guards and prisoners were decided by a flip of a coin. The experiment abruptly ended after six days because of the mental break downs and hunger strikes the inmates were having. The BoBo Doll Experiment was an experiment that studied aggression. The way that the experiment worked was that they had adults attack the BoBo doll and they made the children watch to see if they would mimic the adults actions. When presented with the BoBo doll the children acted the same way as they saw the adults act. They were able to learn the aggression and hostile language from the adults.

Summary of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The stanford prison experiment is an investigation of how people will adhere to the cliché prisoner and guard roles in a simulated prison. According to Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved from https://www.dowellwebtools.com/tools/lp/Bo/psyched/17/Stanford_Prison_Experiment Philip Zimbardo the head researcher and acting prison warden says, "The purpose [of the experiment] was to understand the development of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations in a simulated prison environment. " What followed was an unimaginable series of events that appeared to bring out the worst in both the prisoners and the guards.

Prisons in the United States have been labeled as places where cruel and unusual punishments occur and are rightfully labeled as such; not because of the demeanor of certain group of people, but because of the specific situation and scenarios these people are in. The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was set up to help understand the development and growth of the norms based on certain roles, labels and expectations in a simulated prison environment. This paper is going to explain and describe the experiment Philip Zimbardo set up and how it relates to the real world in non-experimental situations in regards with the controversy of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

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

All of the participants were selected from the students who got 15 dollars per day and passed the test without any mental illness. The roles they were playing as the prisoner or the guard were picked randomly. Prof Zimbardo also played a role as an administrator of the prison. Before starting the experiment, he gave a brief orientation to all of the guards that were the maintenance of disciplines and forbiddance the use of physical violence. He reminded the guards once a prison escaped from the cell, the experiment was terminated. He also emphasized that the guards and the administrator had the constant super power during the experiment but the prisoners had none. All of the students who were playing the roles of prisoners were folded their eyes and brought them walking into the basement, in order to confuse their locations. When they entered into the prison, they were peeled off and put on a prison’s clothes, made fun with their genitals, put stocking to cover their head. According to Prof Zimbardo, it was the degradation process which was also processed in the military type. It was the first day of the

When it came down to enforcing laws the good guards were all the volunteers who will do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law & order in the prison. In this experiment the security guards at went past their periphery from being rudely awakening throughout the middle of the night physical punishment etc etc. real prison guards roles are taking care custody & control of individuals who have been arrested or waiting trail so I don’t see why they just didn’t follow that example instead they made up their own rules & ran with it.

The prisoners began to revolt against the guards. At first, Zimbardo had no idea what they were uprising for. He then realized they were fighting the status quo, which was that the guards held all of the power over the prisoners and they could do nothing about it. Prisoner #8612 blockaded himself into his cell with his bed and soon after the others began to follow his lead. The guards became very angry.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to allow 24 participants (college students) to be arrested in a mock police state scenario without any charges being brought against them. The participants were hooded and put into a prison cellblock with other mock prisoners. The purpose of the experiment was to see how non-criminals would be affected by the prison culture and the oversight of prison guards. Philip G. Zimbardo (2004)

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