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Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Initially expected to last two weeks, it instead lasted a mere six days before coming to an end. The experiment successfully shows that all people, despicable or kind, are capable of truly terrifying things, and also reinforces an already well-known theory, the power of the situation.

Originally, the Stanford Prison Experiment was going to be a full two week experiment in order to fully solidify the concepts they were trying to prove. Despite this, the experiment only lasted six days due to the admittedly surprising result: the violent psychological state that both the guards and prisoners had come to, though in completely different ways, and thus …show more content…

While the guards identified the prisoners as the true evil in the situation, the opposite was true from the prisoners’ perspectives. Although not intimidated at first by the guards, they soon became so after the rebellion on the second day. With the already harsh living conditions of being allowed only necessities, the prisoners were made miserable by punishments deemed necessary by the guards for “unacceptable behavior”. The prisoners were forced to do push ups, as well as being locked into solitary confinement. However, above all, the guards relied on humiliation the prisoners to make them weak-willed. Throughout the experiment, the guards began to feel more and more full of themselves as they saw the power they held, while the prisoners felt awful for themselves due to the controlling and borderline abusive behavior of the guards. All of these actions show that true evil comes from good people in unfortunate …show more content…

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. Although this experiment caused no long term emotional trauma, the prisoners suffered throughout the

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