Stanford Prison Experiment : A Psychological Experiment Put Together By Philip Zimbardo

When the prisoners were brought into the prison, they were treated as real prisoners brought into the prison system but were treated inhumanely by being blind folded and left naked for hours. The guards dressed in prison guard uniforms and monitored the prisoners. The clothing of the guards was also “intimidating” towards the prisoners to show their authority over them. The guards got too caught up in their roles that they began to treat the prisoners harshly and in some cases inhumanely. For instance, the lineups went from a couple of minutes to several

1). The guards themselves did not feel any guilt while enacting their behavior against the prisoners until after the experiment ended. The behavior of the guards may be related to the term of demand characteristics, which means that they acted the way they did just because they knew they were a part of a study. Zimbardo had told them how he wanted them to behave and they gave him just that. In a way the social desirability bias applies here because they were trying to conform to the “normal” idea of a prison guard.

Less than two days into the experiment, one of the prisoners began to experience rage, emotional disturbance, uncontrollable crying, began acting crazy, and screaming. The experiment leaders realized he was really suffering and they had to release him. The next day was visiting day for the parents and friends of the prisoners. In order to stop parents from taking their children home, the experimenters cleaned the prison and the prisoners to make them seem pleasant. After the parents visited, there were rumors going around that the prisoners were going to attempt to escape. After the rumor was proved to be untrue, guards acted harshly towards the prisoners and added punishments. A priest who visited the prison, talked with prisoners and offered to contact some of their families for legal help. By day five, there were three types of guards; tough but fair guards, good guards, and hostile guards.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Volunteers were separated into guard and prisoner by the flip of a coin. Prison superintendents were able to see and hear everything that happened by the use of intercom systems and video cameras. Suspects were first arrested at their homes and transported to the makeshift prison. They were then warned of their rights, fingerprinted, and identification was made. Then, the prisoners were humiliated and doused with spray to remove germs and/ or lice.

Interestingly enough, participants became so taken into the ordeal that they seem to forget who they were and that they were involved in an experiment as prisoner participants had internalized their roles. This is based on the fact that some had stated that they would accept parole even under the condition of giving up all of their participation pay. However, when their parole applications were denied, none of

August 14, 1971 was the first day of the experiment, filled with individuality and unknown being of what this experiment was to bring. The college students were picked up in a police car, mirandized, and after processing landed in the experimental jail. Though the experiment collected important data on the psychological break down over what happens when innocent people go to jail, the gruesome and eye opening transformation of each of the prisoners over just six days is shocking. Hopeless and dehumanized, each of the prisoners experienced psychological trauma of varying degrees. Towards the end of the experiment, they were only identifying as their prison number and it was almost as if they had forgotten

The experiment began with 9 guards and 9 prisoners with the remaining volunteers on call in case they were needed. The volunteers who were selected to be prisoners were arrested by the city police, read their rights, and taken to the real station for finger printing and processing. After they were processed and the simulation was created, the prisoners were blindfolded and transported to the mock jail. The guards in the study were not allowed to physically harm the prisoners, but they could use other kinds of abuse. They wore identical khaki uniforms, had a whistle around their neck, and carried a club.

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

The prisoners had to stay in their cells and the yard 24 hours like the real prisoners’ life until the experiment done. The guards were divided into 3 teams of three and each team worked eight-hour shift. And the

assigned numbers to be addressed by, as a means of dehumanization. The prison guards were given uniforms, as well as mirrored sunglasses. Within a day of the experiment the students started to adapt to their roles, the guards adopted authoritarian methods, sometimes subjecting the prisoners to different kinds of torture. The prisoners became submissive, accepting the abuse. The experiment actually had to be stopped prematurely because the conditions were getting too out of hand.

This way was just as effective as physically harming them. From the very beginning the guards needed to assert their power and authority so it gives the impression of a real prison and makes the experiment as real as possible, they succeeded. They brought in a priest who heard confessions from prisoners and when he listened to the mock prisoners even he began to think it was a real prison and he said that the responses that he heard were similar to real prisoners who had just been imprisoned.