Review: The Stanford Prison Experiment

Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect one another. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.

Groupthink can be defined as a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in irrational decision-making. In 1971, twenty-four psychologically stable men took part in a trial known as The Stanford Prison Experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to prove that an individual’s perception of their own power is heavily influenced by social context and societal expectations of their role. The men involved in the experiment were assigned either the role of a prisoner or a guard to represent positions in society, both with power and without. More specifically, the conductors of The Stanford Prison Experiment focused on analyzing the different behavioral

“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 experimental study that I chose to write about is the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was run by Phillip Zimbardo. More than seventy applicants answered an ad looking for volunteers to participate in a study that tested the physiological effects of prison life. The volunteers were all given interviews and personality tests. The study was left with twenty-four male college students. For the experiment, eighteen volunteers took part, with the other volunteers being on call. The volunteers were then divided into two groups, guards and prisoners, randomly assigned by coin flips. The experiment began on August 14th, 1971 in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building. To create the prison cells for the prisoners, the doors were taken

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).

When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This

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.

“Ethics is the study of right actions to achieve good outcomes” (Mertens and Ginsberg). It is distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. (Resnik, 2015) No area of life or work is free of ethical dilemmas, and the research is no exception. (McCarthy, 1996) In 1971, the experiment was done by Dr Phillip Zimbardo. His aim was “to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.”

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

This short clip called “The Power of the situation” goes into depth of the Stanford’s prison experiment. It first goes into explaining how people can be impacted if given certain attributes which later results in different behaviors. The video explains in which how it was possible for Hitler to become dictator and have so many people under his control. Kurt Lewen and his research team found that dictators changed people’s behaviors when they were given uniforms because it gave them a new identity. They did an experiment by setting three groups of boy with 3 different leaders and leadership styles to see what the resulting effects of each were.

Obedience is a significant part of human nature. Whether or not people realize it, they obey many different people and even objects in their everyday lives. Some obvious instances where people obey others are police officers, teachers, and parents. Other instances where people obey, but may not realize it are road signs, laws, and social norms. When people obey, do they obey by choice or do they obey by compulsion?

Hello, Dr. Chambers, Classmates and Readers of this post The Impacts of Improper Methodology and Ethics While Researching The “Wakefield Factor” Versus The “Stanford Prison Experiment” Although harm is harm, harm can be measured. From my own point of view, the immunization study with respect to Dr. Wakefield and his 12 colleagues, led to the most harm and it is one of the greatest ethical abuse in the history of scientific research (Rao, S. T. S, Andrade, C, 2011).

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

Human beings perform actions that are often deemed illogical or detrimental. The activities are regularly enforced, encouraged, and compounded by others. The actions can be related to categories such as authority pressure, peer pressure, and situational pressure. In looking at articles like ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ and “Jonestown”, the categories above can be confirmed. The articles show how people conform to the circumstances that surround them and provide little or no objection to the situation. The use of a tobacco product is a prime example of a detrimental action that people participate in due to the pressures placed on them or innuendos that are implied through authority, peers, or situations.

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)