Social Roles Have An Influence On People 's Behavior

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a clear example of how humans can adapt to specific social roles and behave differently under the pressure of control. The experiment illustrated the concepts of deviance and social control through participants behavior. Although the prisoners were not really prisoners, they believed that they were. The behavior of the prisoners began to morph along with the experiment. By day two, the prisoners were showing deviance by barricading themselves inside their cells. The environment and treatment of the prisoners were likely causes of the disobedience. Similarly, the guards showed signs of social control throughout the experiment. Guards were able to show control over the prisoners through various actions, such

Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment.

The article on the Stanford Prison Experiment titled, A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison and written by the Office of Naval Research, provides us with the overall information that deals with this controversial psychological study. The study was conducted by

The Stanford Prison Experiment sought to recreate a prison experience to study behaviors of prisoners and guards. The authors were seeking answers to the question of dispositional hypothesis which states “that the state of the social institution of prison is due to the “nature” of the people who administer it, or the “nature” of the people who populate it, or both” (A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Stimulated Prison, 1971, pg. 2). In other words, they were studying whether the prisoners and guards behaviors changed due to their personalities or was it the prison environment that caused these changes. The authors considered the recidivism rate that was 75 percent at the time, conditions in prisons, and the belief that prisons

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.

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.

Philip Zimbardo and his team aimed to demonstrate the situational rather than the dispositional causes of negative behaviour and thought patters found in prison settings by conducting the simulation with average everyday participants playing the roles of guard and prisoner. From a total of seventy-five volunteers, twenty-two male participants

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 experiment needed to answer some difficult questions; one being what happens when you put a good man in a horrible, evil place such as a prison. The person leading the experiment was Psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo and his contemporaries needed to find people willing to participate in how the impact of prison life affects the guards and the prisoners. Using an ad in the paper offering fifteen dollars a day, seventy people filled out applications and were heavy screened for drug abuse, any involvements in crime, or any underlying mental illness that was not documented, only twenty-four students from various colleges in Canada and the Stanford area were given the paid opportunity to take part of Zimbardo’s experiment (Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, & Jaffe, 1971).

Introduction: The topic of this research is to look at and understand the development of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations in certain environments. The purpose of this study is to show the mental stress that prisoners could endure while being institutionalized. In addition, the roles that prison guards have and the possibility of the exploitation of power shown by those in leadership roles in American prisons. The study that we would perform is like the controversial and infamous Stanford Prison experiment which was conducted by Philip Zimbardo in the summer of 1971 and is still being talked about today.

This paper serves to summarize The Zimbardo Prison Experiment, better known as The Stanford Prison Experiment which was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University. The purpose of the study was to conduct research in order to better understand the psychological components of human aggression and submission to include conformity and obedience in a prison environment with a select group of subjects playing roles as either prison guards or inmates, however, I should note, according to McLeod, S. (2016), The Navy’s intent or purpose for the experiment was to better understand how to train members of the armed forces on how to cope with stress associated with captivity as opposed to making American Prison systems more humane. Another interesting point of note is that Zimbardo conducted this experiment shortly after World War II, and the Vietnam War where concern was raised as to some of the atrocities carried out in those wars where “ordinary” people conducted heinous acts per instruction from so-called authoritative figures. Experiments with similar objectives were carried out by Stanley Milgram and others. (Jones, A. D., & Milgram, S. 1974)

In 1932, Jennes conducted one of the earliest conformity experiments. Jennes took 101 psychology students, divided them into groups of three, and asked them to work together to estimate how many beans were in a glass bottle that contained 811 white beans. The students would come up with their own individual answer and then after discussing it with the group, would have the opportunity to change their answer. Jennes discovered that nearly all of the students had chosen to change their answers after the group discussion, and that the answers led further into the average median of the estimates. His experiment demonstrated the power of conformity in a relatively low-pressure environment, and the effects of “informational social influence”. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, the object of the experiment was to observe how readily volunteers would conform to their roles as prisoners or guards in a prison-setting. And to do this, Zimbardo transformed Stanford’s psychology building basement into a makeshift prison, and asked volunteers to study the psychological effects of life in prison. 10 prisoner roles and 11 guard roles were assigned to healthy male college students. As the prison days commenced and continued, the prisoner’s dependence and the guard’s aggressiveness grew in proportion. Abuse against prisoners escalated, with various cases of emotional/mental breakdown from prisoners resulting in the need for psychological care, in less than one week. Like the Milgram

How being in prison not only effects the prisoners but the guards as well is something that we needed to learn about. In 1971 at the time of the study there was a problem with assaults in prison but it wasn’t known if it was mainly from the personalities that were in the prison or the prison environment itself. In trying to figure out which one it was there were some interesting results that came from the prison set up inside one of the buildings in Stanford. While this “prison” wasn’t exactly like a modern day prison it did have some similarities. While there were three to a room cells with no windows or anything on the walls, like a normal prison, they didn't provide adequate sunlight or even treat them as well as actual prisoners. The students went into this study looking forward to getting paid for two weeks of work where they had a place to sleep, food to eat and people to talk to. What they actually got though was six days of torture essentially. This turned into something way too real for the students, especially the prisoners. No longer was this a fun two week experiment, this was what do I need to do to make this as painless as possible. According to Saul McLeod, “90% of the prisoners’ private conversations, which were monitored by the researchers, were on the prison conditions, and only 10% of the time were their conversations about life outside of the

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

The prison conditions can vary from place to place. However, every prison shows evidence of emotional strain on both prisoners and guards. Prisoners treated as animals or as subhuman do not do well after their time of incarceration ends. "Prisoners were withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways, and in which some of the guards were behaving sadistically” (Zimbardo). The Sandford Prison Experiment is a good example of how an authoritarian environment can be detrimental to the human mind. College students were randomly assigned to be a prisoner or a guard and put in a prison like environment. These college students began to show dramatically altered behaviors within a couple of weeks. Now apply this type of an environment for an extended period of time. These adverse effects on human brains