Stanford Prison Experiment 1971 Dr. Philp Zimbardo

In the article Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson in the Power of Situation Professor Philip Zimbardo claims that “the situation and the system creating it also must share in the responsibility for illegal and immoral behavior” when deciding an individual’s criminal accountability. Because the power of a

1. 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.

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

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

The Stanford Prison Experiment California State University, Long Beach The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment is a very thought-provoking topic discussed in various classes. Professor and psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted this experiment through Stanford University. Twenty-four men were randomly selected to participate in a simulated prison environment and were given roles as prisoners or prison guards. This was done to challenge the moral compass of “good” individuals in a negative environment, which in this case was a prison. Surprisingly, the participants truly embodied their roles. Throughout the experiment, the prison guards enforced their authoritarian power and tormented the prisoners both

If I was in charge of an experiment like the Stanford Prison Experiment, I think that I would have conducted something like that. I don’t see any moral reasoning why not to, all the participants were voluntary and there was nothing illegal being conducted and extremely valuable data has been extracted from it so I do not see the point of steering clear of this type of experiment. I think a good follow on study might have been a roll reversal, would the inmates have taken a different approach to the guard duties knowing how they were treated while inmates or would they have acted even more aggressive?

The Stanford Prison Experiment was very strange. When one of the prisoners said “they were out of control,” I thought about an authoritarian leader- someone that controls every aspect of a person’s life. I think Zimbardo, creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the guards were being an authoritarian leader. I thought it was disturbing that some of the people that were given the guards position only said “yes” to participate in the experiment because they needed a job and thought that the Prison Experiment would be more entertaining. I think it was weird that being in this experiment changed the “prisoners” physically and mentally. In the Stanford Prison Experiment video, it mentioned the electric shock experiment that was done to people

The Stanford Prison Experiment was created in 1971 and was led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Twenty-four male college students participated and were randomly chosen to be a prisoner or guard. Zimbardo was the prison warden. The prisoners were blindfolded and brought to the basement of the psychology building that had become a mock prison. The experiment was testing the effects of prison on the guards and prisoners.

The Zimbardo prison experiment was a study of human responses to captivity, dehumanization and its effects on the behavior on authority figures and inmates in prison situations. Conducted in 1971 the experiment was led by Phlilip Zimbardo. Volunteer College students played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a simulated prison setting in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.

Society has an influence in most of our daily activities, especially when these activities involve other people. During the Zimbardo Prison Experiment two groups of students were asked to play one of two roles, a prisoner and a guard. The good people that played the guards were completely caught up in their role as prison guard and created a new identity to match their situation. Their normal behavior would not have worked in an environment where they must be strict to keep "criminals" in check, therefore they had to change their behavior into a more ruthless and aggressive manner to fit their new role. During the reign of Nazi Germany most of the soldiers were not apparently capable of doing the acts that were committed, but because of the

Watching this video and having it concentrate on the individual, I was shocked by the results of the Zimbardo Prison Experiment and the situation with Hitler. I felt like these people weren't bad people but were lead by the moment and the situation and the environment surrounding them. The Zimbardo experiment was quite interesting to me but also shocking, I believe that we all have some type of evil in ourselves some use it all the time and some don’t. Like in the case of all does students they became brutal and mean towards their classmates, watching the video when they got one of the students that acted like the officer and the other one as a prisoner he told him “I know that you’re a nice guy but I know what you can turn into and what

The speaker of this lecture was Philip Zimbardo. He made the experiment, Stanford Prison Experiment. I learned this experiment and had interested in him. Searching this experiment, I saw Philip Zimbardo’s lecture of time efficiency and time perspective. I wanted to learn more psychology knowledge which researched by him. So I was interested and I watched it.

Charlie Parrish Mrs. Gumina English III, Hr. 4 18 March 2015 Introduction The Stanford Prison experiment was conducted in 1971, during the summer, at Stanford University. The mastermind behind the experiment was Philip G. Zimbardo, a psychologist and a professor at Stanford University. To help closely simulate a prison environment they called upon an expert. “Our study of prison life began, then, with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle class males” (Zimbardo 4). With this group of middle class males they were then split into two groups, guards and prisoners. Once at the prison the environment became harsh. “There were no windows or clocks to judge the passage of time, which later resulted in some time-distorting experiences” (Zimbardo 6). The prison environment, the harsh ruling of the guards, and the stress being in jail took a tole on the prisoners. As Zimbardo once said, “We wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard” (4). It was not only the prisoners that paid the price of being forced into prison life. Many of the guards went through psychological change. “Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the brutalizing ways they had. Many said they hadn’t known this side of them existed or that they were capable of such things” (McLeod 4). Why do humans readily conform to the specific roles they are assigned? The prisoners and the prison guards both fall victim to this. The Stanford

A Report on the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 I. Introduction: This report on the Stanford Prison Experiment will define the ethical issues related to prisoner treatment and prison culture in a mock scenario created 1971. The findings of this study define the inclination towards corruption and riotous behavior within the overarching relationship between guard and the prisoners. In a short period of time,. The prisoners became hostile and sought to start a riot in order to free themselves from abuses of the prison guards. In some instances, the issue of role-playing limited to reality of the event, but the ethical issues related to issue of prison corruption became evident in the study. The Stanford Prison Experiment provided some important aspects on how good people can became violent lawbreakers within the orison system. In essence, the ethical and experimental conditions of the Stanford Prison experiment define the corrupting culture of prisons in American society during the early 1970s.

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