The Office Episode 'The Convict'

The prisoners became dependent, helpless, and passive. On the other hand, the guards acted exactly opposite. “They became abusive and aggressive at the simulated prison, bulling and insulting the prisoners’. “After the experiment was completed, most of the guards said that they enjoyed the power. Some of the others said that they had no idea of what they were capable. Everyone in the experiment was surprised at the results as well as saying, It was degrading.

So In The Stanford Prison Experiment They tested how the guards and prisoners acted over a span of a couple days. The guards started being really rude while making mean comments about the prisoners so much so they had to end the experiment early. Mcleod stated that “The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the

In the Zimbardo’s The Stanford Prison Experiment; however, the ‘guards’ and ‘prisoners’ were placed in the same facility and were face to face on a daily basis unlike the Milgram experiment. The ‘guards’ would tell the ‘prisoners’ jokingly to do something, however the ‘prisoners’ would do what they were commanded to do to try to hang on to their identity. (Zimbardo 393) By the end of the experiment most ‘prisoners’ showed increased stress levels in the ‘prisoners’ within days, some ‘prisoners’ could not handle the stress induced and had to be released early. The ‘guards’ were equally changed do to the scenario they were put in. One journal of the ‘guards’ showed how a passive person became a person shoving food down another person’s mouth and locking them up in solitary confinement (Zimbardo 389-399).

In the experiment, people were picked randomly and one as a teacher and one as the student. They were told to take a quiz and give electric shocks of increasing intensity as punishment if the student can’t answer. During the experiment, many people were concerned as someone can be heard shouting but only a few people who decided to stop and stick to their morals. But the others kept on going because they were just following orders from a superior (Milgram 77). "The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo, is about an experiment that was made to understand the roles people play in prison situations. For the experiment, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. The participants were told to act as prisoners and guards. It was planned to be a two-week experiment but was forced to shut down in 6 days, all because of people quickly getting into their roles and started acting like the real prisoners and guards (Zimbardo 104). To compare both experiments, although they differed vastly in design and methodology, the point of both experiments was to observe how far an individual would go in inflicting increasing pain on a victim. Also how people obey under authoritative circumstances, when given power or different roles, however the writers differ in the seriousness of the fight for individuality and the use of reality.

The air is saturated with the smell of concrete and fear. The wailing of men echoes through the dark, unholy halls. A new face makes its way in. Only thing harder than holding back tears, are trying to not show fear. They will feed of it, off of me. It will not break me; I will not break. This is what to expect from an evil place where grown men can be molded; broken and reformed into a weaker being or into a strong piece of iron. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study put together by Phillip Zambardo to test the psychological effects of a prisoner and guard scenario in a mock prison setting. The experiment lasted seven to fourteen days and was comprised of twenty-four male students, who were picked at random to take part in the experiment. The role of guard and prisoner were also selected at random. The mock prisoners were subjugated to psychological abuse, harsh authoritarian rule by the guards, and intense living conditions to ensure maximum results were met. The experiment concluded early and a couple prisoners left due to an intense amount of stress brought on from the ordeal. Although the experiment was brief, it gave a great deal of insight into how environment can abruptly affect the psychological well-being of an individual. Zimbardo states, “Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place—would their goodness triumph?” (Cherry, 2006) Everyone has darkness within them and all it takes is a little push. Every person picked for this experiment was not

The year was 1971 and no one was ready for the results that the study, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment would conduct (Whitbourne). A test subject’s fate was determined by the flip of a coin, twelve prison guards and twelve prisoners (Zimbardo). Now that Zimbardo knew he had test subjects, he assembled a team to begin construction of the “Stanford County Jail.” With the help of a former imprisoned convict, the prison was built to be as realistic as possible. Zimbardo said, “The Prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department building (Zimbardo). That corridor was the ‘yard’ and was the only outside place where prisoners would

He explained that many of the people that he face in doing his job make it especially hard to compartmentalize convicts characteristics and charges versus the fact that they are nonetheless human beings – and with that must be treated accordingly. Of course, there is extensive training prior to becoming an active employee. Training continues on the job after the fact. Initially, he found it the most difficult to know that some of these inmates were child molesters and rapists, and he was, by law required to treat every inmate professionally and equally. In addition, in order to gain the respect needed from each inmate he had to first show them respect. Earning their trust was the key to

A classic experiment on the natural obedience of individuals was designed and tested by a Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram. The test forced participants to either go against their morals or violate authority. For the experiment, two people would come into the lab after being told they were testing memory loss, though only one of them was actually being tested. The unaware individual, called the “teacher” would sit in a separate room, administering memory related questions. If the individual in the other room, the “learner,” gave a wrong answer, the teacher would administer a shock in a series of increasingly painful shocks correlating with the more answers given incorrectly. Milgram set up a recorder

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.

Situational comedies draw connections between the realm of television life and reality. These shows are successful due to the realistic scenarios and mishaps that shape the lives of each individual character. The Office is a “mockumentary”, or parody documentary, that follows a small paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania that is led by narcissistic boss, Michael Scott (Steve Carrell). Episode 12 of season 2, “The Injury” is a summary of the overall show, as it exhibits Michael’s desire to feel wanted and Dwight Schrute’s (Rainn Wilson) longing for his superior’s approval. Throughout the entirety of the show’s nine seasons, Michael continues to go to outlandish lengths for public approval, and Dwight continues to do equally embarrassing things

Golding demonstrates that the situation such as being alone on an island with no adults overcame Jack and he made an irrational decision. Furthermore, the environment changed Jack, which made him threatened by Ralph. According to the Stanford Prison Experiment article, “The simulation became so real, and the guards became so abusive, that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days” (“More Information: Frequently Asked Questions”). This experiment proves how a situation affects a person’s ability to make a decision. An environment with an intense atmosphere can change a person's way of thinking to become negative.

I decided to share about one of my favorite TV shows, The Office. I enjoy this show because there are so many different characters with unique personalities. Each character interacts with one another in their own personal ways. In this show, there is no character that is the same. Certain ones give a representation of how to communicate appropriately and others show an inappropriate way to communicate. The three characters that I have chosen to look closely at are, Michael, Dwight, and Jim. Michael is the boss of the paper company department, Dwight and Jim are sales representatives. Michael and Dwight are not very good at appropriately communicating with one another or with others in the office. Jim is one of the “normal” ones on the show.

“[When we got hit], my father’s body was scattered in pieces and he died immediately, but I was unconscious for three to four days… [Since then], I am disabled” (Jha). This testimony comes from Sadaullah Wazir, a teenager who was severely injured in a drone strike in North Waziristan in 2009, in a complaint, he delivered before the United Nations Human Rights Council about the tragic attack (Jha). He continued on to describe the traumatic aftermath, he and his family have faced saying “[The presence of drones] intimidates them. If the drones had not become routine and my father had not died and I hadn’t lost my leg, today I would have completed my MA in Political Science...

The Stanford Prison Experiment shows the type of people we become when put in certain positions. As humans we can not truly predict what we will become in these positions of power and solitude. Another example of situational psychology is what happened in Abu Gharib. Abu Gharib became a prison for suspected terrorists against the United States. The guards of the prison, who were US military, treated the prisoners like animals. They put them on leashes, made them strip and were put in extremely awkward positions, and sometimes they went as far as killing them. Now the guards can not be completely forgiven for what they did but the situation they were put in was part of the reason for how they behaved. They were constantly reminded of their friends being killed in combat and were surrounded by violence themselves. Also, the way they were behaving became the norm, they were not getting in trouble for it and they were soldiers, killing machines. Their job is not to watch a bunch

Throughout history there have been hundreds upon hundreds of influential figures, although not all of them have devoted their career to understanding the human mind. Of the few who have devoted their time to this hugely important task, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo’s theories and experiments have made him stand out, and differentiate himself from the rest in his profession. Zimbardo 's area of expertise in the field of psychology is social psychology, the branch that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Zimbardo may be most well known for his Stanford Prison experiment, an experiment that seems to address the definition of social psychology perfectly. In this experiment Zimbardo had clinically healthy and sane people volunteer for the position of a prison guard or a prisoner and see how they behaved, for fifteen dollars a day. The prison was actually the basement of the Stanford psychology building, where the experiment would take place for a planned 14 days. As said before, the prisoners and guards were all tested as mentally healthy, and for the sake of the experiment were arrested, and processed on a random morning, August 14th 1971. (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 23). The results of this experiment are outstanding, shocking, and somewhat disturbing, making this one of, if not, the most unethical psychological experiments. Although the experiment is considered wildly immoral, Zimbardo is one of the most influential psychologists