Social Influence Research - Do the Ends Justify the Means? Essay

This experiment was put through to show how prisoners act within a prison environment while being isolated within the cell and being forbidden from contact with people outside the jail. The prisoners were arrested in their homes and taken to the police station. The normal procedures for a convicted criminal were given, and the prisoners were then transferred to the basement of the psychology department. The basement was designed to replicate an average prison. Standard rules such as forbidden prisoner to guard eye contact were given. Guards were not allowed to address the prisoners by anything besides their uniform number. Although just an experiment, the subjects were quickly adapting to their roles. Prison guards began to harass the inmates, and the inmates began to verbally abuse each other to extreme levels. Guards also started using major brutality. Due to the drastic escalation of the physical and verbal abuse, the experiment was terminated early (McLeod). This suggests that when isolated, people can start to act more cruel than they would in

Drs. Milgram and Zimbardo both made groundbreaking discoveries in their field and led people forward based on this knowledge. Both studies originally, in thought, started out to be ethical but the way the experimenters went about the treatment of those being tested was unethical due to the mental stresses put on by both experiments. The physical humiliation the participants were put through in the Stanford Prison experiment was uncalled for. It was not right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for knowledge gained because these people are left with physiological damage because of how they were treated. In Milgram’s experiment they all believed they were shocking a man with a heart condition which brought undue stress to the teacher, but they weren’t doing any actual damage to him. In the Stanford Prison experiment the prisoners were belittled and shamed and made to feel like actual prisoners. One prisoner went on hunger strike and refused to eat unless released. The hunger strike and most of the guard’s emotional attacks caused major psychological scars and emotional damage. This is what many people actually experience when they come out of prison.

In psychology, there are lots of controversial experiments that have been done and are still talked about today. The experiment that sticks out for me is Zimbardo’s Prison study, it catches my eye for more than one reason. In this study, Philip Zimbardo gathered up a bunch of students to play the roles of prisoners and guards. Zimbardo wanted to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role played situation that would be equivalent to prison life. (McLeod 1) During this experiment that lasted six days, Zimbardo found out that the guards treated the prisoners horribly (McLeod 1) This turned the tables and Zimbardo became interested in finding out if the brutality of the guards were due to their malicious personalities or if it had more to do with the environment of being in a prison. One form of behavior that Zimbardo noticed was that the prisoners did not respect the authority of the guards which resulted in the guards being aggressive towards the prisoners (McLeod 1).

One of the most controversial studies in the history of psychology is Stanley Milgram’s Obedience experiment, which revealed the power of obedience and the horrendous acts people would commit when faced by an authority figure. Milgram selected male participants to be part of a learning study. He got people to be either the learner or the teacher. It was fixed that they were always the teacher. The teacher would shock the learner if they would get the problem wrong. The results showed that the participants would obey if person giving orders is close by, if person giving orders is perceived as legitimate authority figure, if person giving orders is affiliated with prestigious institution, if victim is in separate room. Milgram’s experiment changed how people viewed what others would do in situations. People could see that the ones doing horrendous acts are not any different than the average person rather they are just people following order. Milgram showed that obedience is a very powerful tool and anyone can be subjected to be under the influence. Another similar experiment is the Stanford Prison experiment, which had college students acting like guards and inmates. The participants took their roles very seriously. The guards started to treat the inmates bad and started to physically abuse them. The experiment was a success in the sense it proved that people will take on these roles and abide by them but, it was alarming to

The two studies being analyzed today are the Stanly Milgram experiment and the Slater experiment. The two similar experiments yielded information about obedience to authority that explains the correlation in society between authority, obedience, and morality. Despite the major ethical problems in the Milgram experiment, it is known in social psychology today that human beings will follow orders from authority figures even to the extent of inflicting harm on another. However, even with this fact, it is also known that there is limits to such obedience.

Philip (2009) to try and see what was being said about prison treatment was true, this was called the Stanford prison experiment. This experiment only lasted 6 days due to the circumstances versus 6 weeks. Zimbardo had to find out whether the prisons were brutal due to the guards or due to the environment. It was clear that the role of the guards was the issue and not the environment. This was discovered when a sample was chosen from the population. Each induvial was set up to be a guard or a prisoner at random. In this study researchers got see the unfortunate power of social situations. Once prisoner and guard roles were assigned each group were told that they were being watched by the researcher and his colleagues, the guards were to not hit the prisoners, and debriefed about the experiment. Although all this was told the guards took situations into their own hands and the power took over. The guards began simply viewing them as prisoners and the prisoners began to fear the guards. It is important to note the researcher did not intervene but continued to observe when the hitting was taking place. This is particularly important because not only are the guards fitting the rod but the researcher is at fault for the fundamental attribution error but viewing the situation for what it

The study of social psychology, particularly conformity, is very difficult to conduct both ethically and accurately in order to be able to obtain useful results. In the studies done by Milgram and Zimbardo, ethics were definitely breached but to what extent were these experiments useful, and which one offered the most insight into human behaviour?

There has been many variations of this experiment also. For example, the teacher was free to choose the shock level and thirty-eight of the forty subjects did not go above 150 volts. Another example would be when the experimenter gave the instructions by telephone. Only one third of the subjects were obedient in this version of the experiment. The subjects found it easier to disobey when they were not face to face with the experimenter.

In 1971 Philipp Zimbardo carried out one of the most ethically controversial psychological experiment the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’. Originally he aimed to study how much our behavior is structured by the social role we occupy. Describing the study briefly 24 undergraduates with no criminal and psychological record were chosen for the research to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of Stanford University Psychology Building, equipped by hidden cameras and microphones. As the lead researcher, Zimbardo was observing the events from a different room, giving instructions to the guards. The research was supposed to last about two weeks. However,

Social psychology explains individual behavior as prejudiced by other people and the social context. Social psychologists thus deal with the factors that lead us to behave in an assumed way in the presence of others. It examines the circumstances and situations under which certain actions and feelings follow. (University of Southern California) This paper discusses the ethical dilemma on Stanford prison experiment by Professor Zimbardo. How his social psychology experiment was unethical and what led it to be. His experiment is extending to the Milgram obedience studies.

This experiment (pg.23) brought out the worst in the authoritative group part of the research. The guards had no humanly regard for the prisoners and lost all morals and their code of ethics (pg.30), if they had any. They harassed, tortured and humiliated the prisoners as if they had just become the righteous group by using their power to make the prisoners turn on each other. On the other side, the prisoners took their roles too seriously as well. Most became to differential susceptible (pg.6) and vulnerable to the abuse.

This experiment affected the prisoners' mindsets and their attitudes. This study also had affected the guard’s behavior. Before the experiment had begun, each subject had been gone through a series of psychological tests to narrow the subjects down to those who were completely ordinary and had no signs of previous mental illnesses. The students in the experiment had changed to conform their social roles in the mock prison. The prisoners had changed to an obedient, following state of mind while the guards had begun to act violently and with aggressive attitudes.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by psychologist Dr. Philip Zimbardo, as an expansion to Dr. Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience (Cherry, para. 1). Zimbardo wanted to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behaviour (Cherry, para. 1). He did this by looking at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard (Cherry, para. 1). Zimbardo and his colleagues were interested in how the participants would react when placed in a simulated prison environment (Cherry, para. 1).

To determine the effectiveness causal factors of crime the social control and bonding theory will be applied by conducting a meta-analysis on an empirical study. The Social Control Theory tells us about the behavior of juveniles and how they relate to the ties of society. A juvenile that has a strong bond to its society produce more positive actions. A juvenile that has a weak bond with its community can lead to criminal behavior. The Social Control Theory implies that the environment can affect behavior. The study of the Social Control Theory focuses on “the relationship between social control and social learning at the level of inter-personal relations, specifically the joint influences between parents and peers as they relate to delinquent behavior”(Champion, 2004). Family ties, commitment to society, and the belief of what is important are a few elements of the social control theory. The Social Bond Theory puts focus on an individual and their peer influences and peer groups. In this theory, attachment is extremely important when it pertains to parental figures. The strength or weakness of a family is a great variable and

Ethical guidelines and considerations in research experiments involving human subjects are a fairly new construct. Prior to the twentieth century, elaborate set of rules and regulations regarding the use of human subjects in experiments merely did not exist. However, one of the most critical elements of research are ethical considerations, and the goal of a research experiment is to discover new information to broaden the knowledge of the human society. Therefore, distorting, falsifying, or misinforming research participants for the purpose of manipulating different reactions is highly unethical, and the values that research ethics rely on including integrity, accuracy, and objectivity are always violated. The Milgram Experiment on Obedience and the Stanford Prison Experiment are examples of two of the most intriguing and widely discussed social psychology experiments that have violated the basic principles of research ethics involving human subjects.